"Bills," he continued, "are not easy to stick, lemme tell you, sir.
Sign paintin's a soft snap when it comes to bill-stickin'. Now, I guess
I've stuck more bills in New York State than ennybody."
"Have you?" I said angrily.
"Yes, siree! I always pick out the purtiest spots--kinder filled chuck
full of woods and brooks and things; then I h'ist my paste-pot onto a
rock, and I slather that rock with gum, and whoop she goes!"
"Whoop what goes?"
"The bill. I paste her onto the rock, with one swipe of the brush for
the edges and a back-handed swipe for the finish--except when a bill is
folded in two halves."
"And what do you do then?" I asked, disgusted.
"Swipe twice," said Frisby with enthusiasm.
"And you don't think it injures the landscape?"
"Injures it!" he exclaimed, convinced that I was attempting to joke.
I looked wearily out to sea. He also looked at the water and sighed
sentimentally.
"Floatin' buoys with bills onto 'em is a idea of mine," he observed.
"That damn ocean is monotonous, ain't it?"
I don't know what I might have done to Frisby--the rifle was so
convenient--if his mean yellow dog had not waddled up at this juncture.
"Hi, Davy, sic 'em!" said Frisby, expectorating upon a clamshell
and hurling it seaward. The cur watched the flight of the shell
apathetically, then squatted in the sand and looked at his master.
"Kinder lost his spirit," said Frisby, "ain't he? I once stuck a bill
onto Davy, an' it come off, an' the paste sorter sickened him. He was
hell on rats--once!"
After a moment or two Frisby took himself off, whistling cheerfully
to Davy, who followed him when he was ready. The rifle burned in my
fingers.
It was nearly six o'clock when the professor appeared, spade on
shoulder, boots smeared with mud.
"Well," he said, "nothing to report, Dick, my boy?"
"Nothing, professor."
He wiped his shining face with his handkerchief and stared at the water.
"My calculations lead me to believe," he said, "that our prize may be
due any day now. This theory I base upon the result of the report from
the last sea captain I saw. I can not understand why some of these
captains did not take the carcass in tow. They all say that they tried,
but that the body sank before they could come within half a mile. The
truth is, probably, that they did not stir a foot from their course to
examine the thing."
"Have you ever cruised about for it?" I ventured.
"For two years," he said grimly. "It's no use; it's accident when a
ship falls in with it. One captain reports it a thousand miles from
where the last skipper spoke it, and always in the Gulf Stream. They
think it is a different specimen every time, and the papers are teeming
with sea-serpent fol-de-rol."
"Are you sure," I asked, "that it will swing in to the coast on this
Gulf Stream loop?"
"I think I may say that it is certain to do so. I experimented with
a dead right whale. You may have heard of its coming ashore here last
summer."
"I think I did," said I with a faint smile. The thing had poisoned the
air for miles around.
"But," I continued, "suppose it comes in the night?"
He laughed.
"There I am lucky. Every night this month, and every day, too,
the current of the loop runs inland so far that even a porpoise
would strand for at least twelve hours. Longer than that I have not
experimented with, but I know that the shore trend of the loop runs
across a long spur of the submerged volcanic mountain, and that
anything heavier than a porpoise would scrape the bottom and be carried
so slowly that at least twelve hours must elapse before the carcass
could float again into deep water. There are chances of its stranding
indefinitely, too, but I don't care to take those chances. That is why
I have stationed you here, Dick, my boy."
He glanced again at the water, smiling to himself.
"There is another question I want to ask," I said, "if you don't mind."
"Of course not!" he said warmly.
"What are you digging for?"
"Why, simply for exercise. The doctor told me I was killing myself
with my sedentary habits, so I decided to dig. I don't know a better
exercise. Do you?"
"I suppose not," I murmured, rather red in the face. I wondered whether
he'd mention fossils.
"Did Daisy tell you why we are making our papier-maché Thermosaurus?"
he asked.