Bloomington High School, The Gothic, 1908, Page 40

Description:	...A Dream of 1910...CAST away there-Open the chute and let a ton ofballast down on that green house. In three hourswe will anchor in Paris. This was what I heardon coming to. All I remembered was that I had been forced toswear allegiance to Captain Banes, as my late captor called him-self. Ah, yes, it was all coming back to me now. I was pickedup off the street and was to be taken to Paris in the Skull,Captain Banes pirate airship to aid in the robbery of the DeRocks jewels. I now fully realized my predicament and knewit was useless to disobey the commands of the invincible Cap-tain Banes. If I did I would be compelled to walk the plankright off into mid-air and probably adorn some friendly churchsteeple, for by this time the Skull was about a mile up.Here, boy! You polish that rail! Lieutenant Black-flag, load the compressed-air guns with etherized radium.Yes, sir, said I, and went to work very reluctantly polish-ing the fore-rail. Looking down directly under us I noticedsomething blue rising toward us. I ran and reported it to theCaptain. That worthy gentleman, upon peering down throughhis twenty-five mile spy-glass, said:Why, that is Aerial Andrew, the blood-hound of theclouds, in his new ship. He has probably learned our plansand we must put on double speed to elude this noted thief-chaser. Boy, you shall have a promotion for warning me ofhim. I hereby appoint you second assistant pilot.We completely lost our pursuer by mere speed, whenanother startling event occurred. Andrew Stickyfinger receivedthe full effect of a half unit of pure radium while charging agun. There was no pain connected with it. It only shriveledpoor Andy into so small a man that he was unfit for further use,and the Captain, turning five units on him caused the poor fel-low to disappear entirely. We enjoyed a few more interestingadventures in the way of chases by police boats and the like.I was by this time putting my heart into the work and consid-ered myself a full-fledged pirate.Arriving in Paris and having located the DeRocks mansionby means of the phonographic spy glasses, we sailed over thecity and anchored the Skull to Eiffel Tower, now deserted.Descending, we hurried stealthily to the place of robbery. Thesafe was burned through with a new invention of Capt. Banes,a combination of aerial materials, consisting partly of oxygenand some deadly corrosive gases. We had disturbed no one andhad robbed the safe of ninety million dollars worth of jewels.Our get-a-way had partly been accomplished when uponstepping onto the street we were confronted by Aerial Andrew,the thief-chaser, backed up by one hundred policemen. I wasrather new in this kind of business and had failed to don a pairof the ships pneumatic shoes, as the rest had done. These onbeing set into motion, would carry the wearer about one hun-dred feet at a bound and equally as high. Whenever a police-man would grab one of my companions he would be carried into-the air and upon arriving at earth would be dashed to pieceswhile the pirates would bounce nimbly away. Alas, poor me! Iwas captured and thrown into prison. Being well nigh worn outI laid down on the prison cot and the last thing I saw was apurple cloud rising (through the bars) and with it the good40
Source:	http://cdm17129.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/hs-bloom/id/914
Collection:	Bloomington High School

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