Thirty-six hours later Lieutenant Pinkham dropped off a truck near the drome of the Ninth and limped, sore of foot and weary, past a sentry on the edge of the tarmac. The Boonetown exponent of skulduggery had bundled up his flying coat and was carrying it via stick, hobo fashion. “Huh,” grunted the human watch dog, “so it’s you, sir? We was hopin’—er—I mean we figured you must of ‘went west.’ They was about ready to bury your trunk an’ things, the officers was. They said it would do ‘stead of a stiff.”
“You’re a liar,” Phineas grinned and kept on walking. He trudged to his hut and tossed his flying coat on his cot. Then he flopped down beside it, wishing that he could get fifty cents worth of good old U.S. ice on which to set his burning dogs.
Bump Gillis nosed in a few minutes later and eyed the prodigal crookedly.
“Hello, Rothschild,” the sturdy Scot began. “Where’d you hide the dough, huh?”
“What dough, huh?” Phineas countered. “What’s the idea anyway? I s’pose a bank in Paree has been held up an’ they blame me. I don’t know what it is you are talkin’ about.”
“The Old Man will enlighten you,
Carbuncle,” Bump said with a superior air. “He has been waiting for you to show up. Did you by any chance take a detour around the Alps?” Then Bump ducked as Phineas gathered strength to swing his fist.
Five minutes later an orderly knocked and asked Phineas Pinkham to step over to see Major Garrity for a couple of minutes. The Iowa wonder went to the Operations office and reported that he had come back.
“Don’t remind me of it,” the Old Man
exploded. “How is the big financial wizard, huh?”
“The wha-a-a-a-a?” Phineas gulped. “What’s all the—Why hello, Colonel. You get around, don’t you, haw-w-w-w? You still think I stole them marks when you hit the cow with the jilopi, huh? By the way, the Frog is goin’ to sue you, as after you left me he come along an’ said the vache had a pedigree longer than—er—”
“Search his hut!” Colonel McWhinney of the U.S. Intelligence stormed. “I know he stole those marks, Major. That cow was tied up to a fence when we hit it. It was eatin’ grass in the middle of the road. Whoever saw grass growing in the middle of a road over here the way those trucks have been pounding them the last two years? Lieutenant Pinkham, I demand that you give up the marks.”
“Don’t make me laugh, as when I cracked up I split my lip,” Phineas pleaded. “I never heard nothin’ so silly. Humph!”
But Colonel McWhinney persisted, so the Pinkham hut was searched minutely. An M.P. unwrapped the Pinkham flying coat, then barged out yelling bloody murder and begging some one to unhinge a snapping turtle from his thumb.
“That gives me another idea,” Phineas mumbled as he watched the M.P. dive into the medico’s shack.
Colonel McWhinney finally headed out of the drome. Nevertheless, he still insisted that Lieutenant Pinkham was a crook and that he would catch up with him if it took forty years after the war.
“Stubborn bum, ain’t he?” Phineas remarked to the Old Man as he followed his C.O. into the Operations office. “Haw-w-w-w!”
“Pinkham,” Garrity thundered, “don’t try to kid me. Once there was a guy named Rothschild and he got close to the Battle of Waterloo to see how it would come out. He planned either to buy French Louies or English pounds. Then when he saw that Wellington was going to knock Bonaparte into a cocked hat, he beat it to the Channel, hopped a boat to England, and bought up all the British money he could find. That mean anything to you, you buck-toothed simian?”
“That is a swell story, daddikins,” the irrepressible Yank baby-talked. “Now tell me ‘bout the barber who cut the throats of forty thieves, will ya papa? Haw-w-w-w! You believe anything, too, don’t you, Major? I am gettin’ so I don’t think it is a joke any more. A Pinkham accused of stealin’! Why I’m as honest as they come. I never heard
of—”
“Listen, halfwit!” Garrity bayed. “Ten minutes before McWhinney got here, a couple of war correspondents dropped in and said they stumbled over an old chateau where an old guy was hived up. He asked ‘em did they have any marks to sell—especially the new ones that had the numbers “1½” printed on ‘em. What did you sell that Frog, Pinkham? Cigar coupons or marks, huh?”
“H-huh?” Phineas tossed out, eyes wary.
“What does that prove? I never heard of the old—”
“Oh no?” Garrity snorted. “Well he mentioned your name. The correspondents reported it to Lieutenant Sprinklem. And the old Frog said to tell you not to forget what you said about getting him some more marks. Look here, Pinkham, come clean. Did you tie that cow in the road? Did you sell cigar cou—?”
“I am surprised at you,” Phineas countered. “You—believin’ such things of me, a Pinkham. I guess you need a rest, as your dome—say, why don’t you ask for three weeks off? If you don’t, you will be tellin’ me I am Bismarck next week. Well, I have things to attend to. Adoo, sir.”
The Major ground his teeth and grew apoplectic, but that did no good so he flung a book at the wall. His eyes started out of his head and he groaned when the pages disgorged dozens of important memorandum slips that he had filed carefully inside the book for safe-keeping.
OVER in Alsace a perturbed Heinie Herr
Oberst was conversing with the leading squarehead of Staffel 7, the Kaiser’s top aerial circus. “Ach, der Marks here vill coom in zwei maybe drei Tags, ja, Herr Hauptmann. Alreadty yedt der gross agent K-4 he ist by der lines ofer where ist das Haus mit der Marks. Yoost haff idt der patienze und der chentlemen of der circus vill gedt idt der pay. Ho! Ho! Das ist sehr gut! Den dey vill fly vunce again.”
“Ja? Ve safe der laughs yedt undtil der Marks ve haff by den Handen, Herr Oberst,” growled the Jerry Hauptmann. “No more ve risk der necks for noddings, mein Freund. Der Leutnants dey haff idt der pockets embdy und dey read off der Cherman profit makers vot eat der sauerbraten und drinken vunce der Rhine vine und bouncing yedt der Frauleins by der knees in der beer gartens, bah!”
“But you vill see,” the Herr Oberst insisted. “Der Marks ve vill gedt!”
Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror Stories and Radio Dramas