CHAPTER I
FOUR CHUMS ABROAD
“So this is the famous Budapest, is it, the twin cities of the blue Danube we’ve been hearing so much about?”
“Huh! doesn’t strike me as so very much of a wonderful place. When you come to think of it, little old New York and Brooklyn can beat it all hollow so far as bustle and business go; even Chicago would run it a hot race.”
“Now that’s just like you, George Rollins, always ready to find fault, and throw cold water on everything. No wonder they’ve called you ‘Doubting George’ this long time back. There’s always a flaw somewhere, you believe, and so you look for it right along.”
“Between you and me, Buster, I don’t think he ever will be cured of that nasty habit. Why can’t he see the bright side of things once in a while, and be an optimist, like our chum and commodore, Jack Stormways?”
“Oh, you ought to know by this time, Josh, a leopard can’t change its spots. I reckon our friend George here has spasms of reform once in just so often; but his weakness is ground in, and his resolves collapse, so he goes back to his old ways again.”
“You don’t say, Buster? Kindly take pity on my ignorance and tell me what there is so wonderful about this old Hungarian capital perched on the banks of the Danube and joined by bridges? I’m willing to have the scales taken from my eyes.”
“Oh, well, first there’s the river itself, not dirty water like most of our streams over in the States, but clear, and almost the color of the blue sky overhead.”
“Sounds fine, Buster. Good for you; go ahead and open his blind eyes some more. It was always George’s way to have his nose down over the engine of his Wireless motorboat, and never see a blessed thing around him. Hit him again for his mother, Buster.”
“Then look at the clear atmosphere; the picturesque buildings hanging over the river banks; the queer shaped boats running back and forth; the remarkable costumes of these Magyars; and last, but far from least, that glorious August sunset painting the little clouds in the west crimson and green and gold. I tell you it’s a scream of a place, if you’ve got any eyes in your head.”
“Buster, you’re a wonder at word painting, though I reckon you cribbed some of that stuff from the guide book. What do you say to it now, old If and But and Maybe?”
“Why, it looks good enough, I own up, fellows, but chances are all this is only on the surface. Scratch the veneer off when you go ashore to-morrow, and prowl around, and you’ll find Budapest just as rotten at the core as Chicago.”
“Don’t waste any more words on the growler, Buster. There’s such a thing as casting pearls before swine, you know – not saying that our chum here is really and truly a hog; but all the same he grunts like one. Let’s talk about our own affairs.”
“Wonder if Jack will fetch a sheaf of letters back from the postoffice? And say, I’m just a little mite anxious to learn how that spat between Serbia and Austria is going to turn out.”
“All of us are, Buster, and have been ever since we read how the Grand Duke who was the latest heir to the Austrian throne after Francis Joseph was murdered with his wife by some Serbian hothead conspirators.”
“Oh, as far as that goes, Josh, I figure that the game little bantam will have to take water and back down, after all this strutting around, just to show that Serbians have pluck.”
“Don’t be too sure of that, fellows,” put in George; “you mustn’t forget that Russia, yes, and France, too, are back of Serbia. There may be something more come out of this rattling of sabres in their scabbards than only a tempest in a teapot.”
“Then it would be Russia and France against the two Teuton States,” remarked the boy answering to the suggestive name of Buster; “and knowing how the Kaiser has been getting his country ready for a scrap this long while, I’d bet on them to turn the trick.”
George, despite his failings, seemed to have read up on the matter and be pretty well posted on facts.
“But there’s always a big chance it wouldn’t stop there,” he announced, with an air of importance; “other countries would sooner or later be drawn into the scramble, because everybody believes there’s going to be an Armageddon or great world war before the era of peace finally comes along.”
“Just what do you mean?” demanded Josh.
“There’s Great Britain, for instance; she’s bound to France in some way, and may have to shy her castor into the ring. Then her ally in the East, Japan, may choose to knock out Germany’s holding in China, just to oblige. Besides, Italy must show her hand, and for one I can’t believe she’ll stand for her old enemy, Austria. And last, but not least, there’s Turkey, hand in glove with Germany, besides all those scrappy little Balkan States, from Greece to Bulgaria and Rumania, who will fight just as they think their interests lie.”
“Whee! but it would be a grand smash-up if all that comes off!” ejaculated Buster. “I’d sure hate to pay the bills. It’d take me some time to get enough of the long green together I sure reckon.”
“Seems to me it’s high time for Jack to be showing up,” ventured Josh. “I hope he hasn’t run up against any trouble, being unable to speak even ten words of German, while the Magyar tongue is a sealed book to him.”
