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 "Sorry boys," he frowned, making a show of pulling out and consulting his old-fashioned railroad watch.

* * * * * * * * * *

"old-fashioned railroad watch"
In 1893, a set of standards for railroad timepieces was established across all railroad companies and zones. This was due to a spectacular crash in 1891 which was caused by one engineer's cheap watch being four minutes slow. But even before that, most railroads had some sort of standards for watches and keeping track of times and schedules. So my guess is that the Professor's railroad watch, being "old-fashioned," doesn't meet the brand new 1893 standards even though it met some other lower standards of some random railroad line.
    My dad used to collect pocket watches and he made a big show whenever he found an old railroad watch. They all just looked the same to me and I was too bored to tears to retain the information from his lectures on what differentiated a railroad watch from a regular old pocket watch. I'm even bored now just recalling the subject!

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 In a curious departure from the good-hearted old fellow's usual "style," his luncheon comments today were increasingly brief, indeed on occasion approaching the terse, and no sooner had the pie á la mode made its appearance than he had called for the check.

* * * * * * * * * *

"good-hearted old fellow"
I'm glad I was handed this shortcut to know what to think and feel about Professor Heino Vanderjuice through Randolph's perspective. I didn't know whether his pursuit of the advancement of civilization through science and technology was fueled by good intentions or evil machinations. But if Randolph sees him as good-hearted, I think I can accept that.

"were increasingly brief, indeed on occasion approaching the terse"
What's got the Professor in a mood? I bet it's a dangerous mission for the Chums of Chance! Maybe some technological espionage! If Pynchon hadn't written that "good-hearted" bit, I'd definitely be picturing Professor Heino Vanderjuice as the Suicide Squad's Amanda Waller.

"pie á la mode"
I have a rule: whenever food is mentioned in a book, I must, as soon as possible, eat that food. Unless it's beefsteaks. Or any other kind of meat. Except maybe turkey. Sorry, turkeys, but as per the wisdom of my mother: "You have to hate somebody, right?!"
    Is that wisdom or was that just something stupid and off the cuff jokey my mother once said that I'll never let her live down? Probably wisdom! I wonder how much of Buddha's teachings are just some snooty remark he made that some dumb scribe who didn't understand sarcasm jotted down as canon?

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 Having attended several useful symposia for airship commanders on techniques for avoiding the display of hurt feelings, Randolph could detect now that something was preying on the Professor's mind.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Having attended several useful symposia for airship commanders on techniques for avoiding the display of hurt feelings"
My technique for avoiding the display of hurt feelings is writing over 5000 blog posts across ten years. Who hurt my feelings? Everybody. If I know you, you've desperately hurt my feelings at one time or another and I've almost certainly not shown it. If you've hurt my feelings and I have shown it, that means you hurt my feelings so much that I finally broke. If you're my father, fuck you.
    Today on Twitter, I went in and read the tweets and replies of somebody whom I've never met but would probably have considered a friend. Until I read their shitty and terrible comments to and about other people who may as well be me and it fucking broke me.
    I'm so fucking tired. I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to be human anymore. It's just too fucking hard.

*long sigh* Um, anyway, can you imagine how often Randolph has had to utilize the lessons he learned at these symposia simply because his first mate is that prick Lindsay Noseworth?

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 Though reunions with the Professor were always enjoyable, this time something different, some autumnal disquiet behind the climate of warm celebration, produced psycho-gastric twinges Randolph had learned from experience he could ignore only at his peril.

* * * * * * * * * *

"autumnal disquiet"
 I guess autumn is a good metaphor, or adjectival intensifier, of disquiet because the weather is becoming colder and more prone to rain, trees superficially die by shedding their leaves, ponds freeze over, and everybody realizes they're one year closer to death. Plus the description probably just means the disquiet is happening because it's autumn and, well, you know how autumn is! Like I just described! The Chicago World's Fair ran until October 30th, 1893, so the Chums could be visiting in September or October. Although earlier one of the descriptions had been a "midwestern summer evening." Technically that could still mean the boys arrived in September which most people don't regard as summer, instead thinking of it entirely as the coming on of autumn.

"psycho-gastric twinges"
I'm starting to believe that Randolph has some kind of mutant stomach-related super power after this bit and the previous "gastric memories" of the strangled alligator in New Orleans. Maybe Randolph has a limited form of ESP but instead of reading minds, his gut rumbles and growls. Or maybe this is just Pynchon riffing on "gut feelings" and instinct. Man, I hope not. I hope it's a stomach-related super power!

"he could ignore only at his peril"
The Professor is a harbinger of doom!

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 They went off to a steak house nearby for lunch.

* * * * * * * * * *

I think the word "nearby" is being stretched beyond its limits. They're in the field of balloons somewhere outside Chicago. How "nearby" can a steak house be? Maybe, because of The Stockyards, steak houses have proliferated to the point of nuisance. Maybe by "steak house," Pynchon means a house made out of the extra beefsteaks the Bindlestiffs of the Blue brought along to calm other aeronauts' guard dogs after which they could raid the camps abandoned by young men rushing off to see naked women at the Fair?

Where is Pugnax during all of this?

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 "Sure!" volunteered Miles.

* * * * * * * * * *

I expect the following three pages to be another slapstick scene caused by Miles fumbling with the camera because remember how Miles is doubly hilarious being both overweight and epileptic.

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 "Nah, we're partners in crime, from back in the olden days in Connecticut, long before your time, fellows, I used to do some tinkering for him now and then. Don't suppose one of you boys could get a snap of us together?"

* * * * * * * * * *

"olden days"
Imagine living in 1893 and thinking you're not currently in the olden days! Ha ha! So funny!

"Connecticut"
That's where Yale is located, in a place called New Haven. "New Haven" sounds exactly like the sort of place a college like Yale would develop. That's a criticism of both the name "New Haven" and "Yale." I just wanted to make that clear! It sounds like the kind of place a bunch of white supremacists who don't think they're white supremacists would establish. A place created by people "known to have done evil while saying to themselves, 'A very good me, the real me, a me made in heaven, is hidden deep inside.'" That's a quote from Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night and it aptly describes the kind of people I would expect to meet in "New Haven." It's also probably pretty apt for the kind of people I meet who say, "I went to Yale!"
    "New Haven" also kind of sounds like "Heaven" which makes sense because Randolph is an angel and his "leader" is probably God. Or, I don't know, The Wandering Jew?

"I used to do some tinkering"
I've never tinkered. I don't know my way around anything mechanical. My dad is probably ashamed of me.

"one of you boys could get a snap of us together"
Since this picture will be taken in 1893, it's automatically an old timey photo.

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 "No need for introductions, then," Lindsay calculated.

* * * * * * * * * *

Way to go, Lindsay, you fucking genius you. Amazing that he can do this kind of social math in his head!

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 "Still up to no good," Merle beamed.

* * * * * * * * * *

Ugh. Merle is one of these guys? So proud to be a thorn in the side of everybody! "Look at me! I'm rebelling against society's norms and standards! I'm the wolf and you're all the sheep! 'Baa baa!' goes not me! Ha ha!"

It's not that I have a problem with Merle being up to no good! It's the "beaming" with which I take issue! I totally agree that we should all be rebelling against society's norms and standards. It's the only sane choice of the individual. For what is an individual if not rebelling against the status quo? They are certainly not themselves. Although you can take it too far and simply be rebelling to rebel which means you're just as manipulated by society as if you were participating. And at that point, why not just go along with everything? At least you'll feel more comfortable (although full of self-loathing, probably. But who isn't already full of that anyway?!). I just mean you should be yourself even if it means people are going to stare at you on the street and whisper rude things to the other idiot next to them!

If I were Merle, this sentence would have gone like this:

"Still up to no good," Merle said through gritted teeth and a heavy sigh, his shoulders stooped by the weight of trying to slog through a society created long before he was conceived in which he had never asked to be born, the constant specter of suicidal peace hovering ever at the periphery of his mind.

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 "Why and bless me," the Professor cried, "if that isn't Merle Rideout I see?"

* * * * * * * * * *

Oh sure. Everybody knows Merle Rideout! What a clever gadabout he is! "Oh look! It's the cool dude who photographs naked ladies!" cries the horny old professor of impossible inventions. "I sure am glad to see him again," he crows as he hides the boner trying to emerge from his lab coat.

No, no! I'm sure there's a grand reason why Heino knows Merle! And I'm pretty sure I read it, having read the first chapter of this book already. I think Merle was interested in light and how light functions before he became a photographer and Heino may have sent him on a journey to learn all about the aether and light waves and love (probably).

"bless me"
It's this kind of casual use of "bless me" and "God doesn't play dice with the universe" and "Jesus is my Lord and Savior!" that makes laymen think scientists believe in supernatural nonsense!

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 "As it happened," Lindsay, the Unit Historian, recalled, "we caught a contrary wind, and ended up in the middle of some unpleasantness in Oltre Giubba, instead of down at Alex, where we had counted upon some weeks of educational diversion, not to mention a more salubrious atmosphere."

* * * * * * * * * *

"Oltre Giubba"
I haven't found any specific mention of unpleasantness in Oltre Giuba (as the Italians referred to Jubaland, the most southwestern state of Somalia and which Pynchon misspelled, unless it was spelled that way in the 19th century or unless the two Bs are just an affectation of Lindsay's speech). But it seems the "general unpleasantness" of the late 19th century was due to British and Italian efforts to colonize Somalia. What the Chums could have flown into was the tensions which began the Banadir Resistance, a guerilla war against the Italians which lasted from 1888 to 1924.
    Contrary winds or not, the Chums were sure to find themselves in the midst of some sort of conflict flying above Africa in the mid to late 1880s as it was the beginning of the Scramble for Africa (also called the Rape of Africa which is a far more fitting and less "apologetic" term. I mean, really, "Scramble for Africa" sounds like some zany Cannonball Run movie or Hollywood comedy akin to It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (was that enough "mad"s? I'm not even going to check!)). This Scramble for Africa led directly to many of the native people exhibits in World Fairs all over the world for decades. So this is a bit of a tie-in to the Chums visiting the Chicago World's Fair. Here we see them hovering about the violence which led directly to the grand exciting spectacle of the Fair they're now visiting.
    Also see Pynchon's thematic use of the Herero Genocide in Gravity's Rainbow.

"Alex"
My guess is that Lindsay means Alexandria, Egypt. We all know the Library of Alexandria was long destroyed but Lindsay lives in a secret world full of secret organizations with secret missions to secret parts of the world. Why would the Chums expect weeks of educational diversion in Alexandria unless the Library was still extant, just now hidden to the rest of the world?! Later, the Chums are going to travel through the Hollow Earth so why shouldn't this offhand remark by Lindsay be read as the Library of Alexandria's existence maintained in some dark hidden section of the city, perhaps in some labyrinthian catacomb beneath the streets?