Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 150: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

pone a operes noma s o. = aoe ETD Orne, SS7ai 3s Neartinae + ovale one Author of “Another Cup Winner,” “The Hunch,” etc. OST men’s hobbies run as wide of their daily business as a patent medicine ad. does of the truth, but on the battle-boat Boston, “Bud” Cantril’s pet diversion took first prize even over ‘‘Speed’”’ Murphy, the starboard coxswain, who could guess a man’s weight from his looks, and‘‘Grinder” Kelly, the chief quartermaster, who had a ditty box full of lodge buttons, for Bud was sprung to- ward automobiles, and if there is one thing a sailor in the good old U.S. N. is far re- moved from, it is that. Old Danny Wallace, pacing the spotlessly scrubbed deck of a Saturday afternoon, after the smoking lamp was lighted, and the ship had settled down for its half-holi- day, paused a moment to look over Bud’s shoulder at his collection of automobile catalogs. Old Danny had a hobby, too, and strange to say, it was the Service itself. He looked with little favor upon things which took other men’s fancies too far away, for old Danny loved the sea and the fighting ships, and in the strength of his hale sixty years refused to have the retire- ment on pension which could be his for the asking. Bud stroked one of the skeleton frames marked ‘‘chassis’” with his finger, and pulled up a ditty box with the other hand for Danny to sit by him. “Look at the lines of that, Danny,” he said enthusiastically. Danny sighed and sat down. ‘“She’s too light for a gun carriage,” he said, ‘“‘too many fixin’s to go wrong.” do anything. Why, one like it has just busted the world’s record for speed.”’ “Speed!” said Danny disgustedly. ‘Far as that goes, what’s the matter with a torpedo boat for speed? Or a twelve-inch shell, flyin’ like a big black star through the center of a target?” ‘‘That does give you a little thrill,” said Bud, ‘‘but listen to me, Danny. To drive a big car like this in a race would be like riding that shell!” ‘““Maybe it would,” said Danny, “but give me a good race-boat’s crew, with backs bendin’ and muscles swellin’, instead of any wood-and-iron contraption that sounds like somebody had lifted off the lid of the hot place, and smells like a mixture of the sick bay and the bilges.”’ “Did you ever ride in one?” asked Bud suddenly. “No,” said Danny, “I’d ruther walk. Besides that, what’s the use? I might get to likin’ it same as you do, and walkin’ would come harder.” “Allright,” said Bud. ‘Some of these days I’m going to have one of these things for my- self, and I’ll take you for your first ride.” “T’ll go with you,” said Danny, “‘but I tell you, Bud, I hope we don’t get the chance, for your thoughts are far enough out of the Service, as it is.” ‘‘Well, I like the Service,” said Bud de- fensively, ‘‘but a fellow’s got to have a little excitement, something to take his mind off the drills and the scrub-and-wash clothes. There goes the bugle for setting-up exer- cises now, and the messenger to strike two “That car,’ said Bud impulsively, ‘can bells. If I was ashore for a week’s blow 148 Comicdooks.com