style="font-size:15px;"> "What is your name, Sonny?" he asked at length.
"Gadget, sir," whipped out the stowaway.
"Good enough!" returned the captain smiling. "We've plenty of gadgets aboard the airship, and I guess another won't make much difference. What do you say, Crabtree?"
"Oh, we'll find something for him to do, sir. And we'll make him earn his keep. He's an intelligent little shrimp, anyhow."
"How old are you, Gadget?" asked the captain.
"Twelve, sir!" replied the gamin.
"Father and mother dead, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir."
"Been left to look after yourself, Gadget, I reckon, haven't you?" said the skipper kindly, as he gave one more searching glance at the small urchin, and noted how the little blue lips quivered, despite the brave young heart behind them.
There was no reply this time, for even the poor, ill-treated lad could not bring himself to speak of his up-bringing.
"Never mind, Gadget…!" interposed the skipper, changing the subject. "So you determined to see the world, did you, my boy?"
"Yessir!" came the reply, and again the sharp eyes twinkled.
"Well, you shall go round the world with me, if you are a good boy. But, if you don't behave, mark my words"–and here the captain raised his voice as if in anger–"I'll drop you overboard by parachute, and leave you behind! Do you understand?"
The urchin promised to behave himself, and, in language redolent of Whitechapel, began to thank the captain effusively.
"There, that will do! Take him away, and get him a proper rig-out, Crabtree," said the skipper impatiently. "I never saw such a tatterdemalion in all my life."
"Come along, now, Gadget," ordered the chief officer, giving a little tug at the frayed rope, which he had been holding all this while, and, which, in some unaccountable way, seemed to hold the urchin's wardrobe together.
This little tug, however, had dire results, in-so-far as the above mentioned wardrobe was concerned. It immediately became obvious that it not only served as braces to the little gamin, but also as a girdle, which kept in a sort of suspended animation Gadget's circulating library and commissariat. For, even as the janitor and his prisoner turned, the rope became undone, and, though Gadget by a rapid movement retained the nether part of his tattered apparel in position, yet his library–which consisted of a dirty, grease-stained, much worn volume–and his commissariat–composed of sundry fragments of dry crusts of bread wrapped in half a newspaper–immediately became dislodged by the movement, and showered themselves in a dozen fragments at the captain's feet.
"Snakes alive! what have we here?" demanded that august person, as he stooped and picked up the book. Then he laughed outright, as he read aloud from the grubby, much-thumbed title page:–
Five weeks in a Balloon … by Jules Verne.
The mate grinned too. He remembered how that same book had thrilled him, not so long ago either. And, perhaps, after all, it was the same with Captain Rogers.
"Where did you get this, Gadget?" asked the captain, reopening the conversation, after this little accident.
"Bought it of Jimmy Dale, sir," replied the boy readily.
"And how much did you pay for it?"
"Gev 'im my braces, an' a piece o' tar band for it, sir."
The captain ceased to laugh, and looked at the boy's earnest face. And something suspiciously like a tear glistened in the eyes of the airman, as he replied:–
"You actually gave away to another urchin an important part of your scanty wardrobe to get possession of this book?"
"Oh, it wur a fair bargen, sir. Jimmy found the book on a dust heap, but I wasn't takin' it fur nothin'. And then Jimmy never had any braces."
"I see. Very well, you can go now, Gadget. Mr. Crabtree will find you some better clothes, and get you some food. Then you shall report to me to-morrow. See, here is your treasured book," said the skipper, dismissing the urchin once more.
"Thank you, sir," returned the boy, pulling a lock of unkempt hair which hung over his forehead, by way of salute. "I'll lend you the book, sir, if you'll take care of it," and the chief officer smiled as he led the little chap away.
So that was how Gadget became part of the fixtures and apparatus of the air liner. He was more than an adventurer, was Gadget. He might even have been an inventor or a discoverer, if he had met with better fortune in the choice of his parents. His sharp, young brain was full of great ideas.
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