CIVILIAN FLYING, 1930.
"You're late," said Millie, as John entered the hall and shook himself free of his flying coat.
"Yes, dear; missed the 5.40 D.H. from the Battersea Park Take-off by a minute to-night. Jones brought me home on that neat little knock-about spad he's just bought. Small two-seater arrangement, you know. Then I walked from the 'drome just to stretch myself. They don't give you too much move space in those planettes."
"Oh, I'd just love to have an aeroplanette like that!" exclaimed Millie. "Mrs. Smith says she simply couldn't do without hers now; it makes her so independent. She can pop up to town, do her shopping and get back in a short afternoon."
"Um—yes," calculated John. "Less than seventy miles the double journey—she'd manage that all right."
"And that pilot of theirs," went on Millie, "seems just as safe with the 'pup' as he is with that great twin-engined bus her husband is so keen on."
"Yes," said John; "must be quite an undertaking getting Smith's tri-plane on the sky-way. It's useful for a family party, though. I hear he packed twenty or thirty on to it for the picnic they had at John-o'-Groat's last week. By the way," added John, as he moved upstairs, "aren't the Robinsons coming to dinner?"
"Yes, you'd better hurry up and change," advised Millie.
The Robinsons were very up-to-date people, John decided as they sat down to the meal a little later. He hadn't met them before. They were Millie's friends.
"Very glad to know such near neighbours," he said cordially. "Why, it's under forty miles to your place, I should think."
"Forty-seven kilos, to be exact," Robinson volunteered, "and I should say we did it under twenty minutes."
"Quite good flying," said John.
"We came by the valley route, too," put in Mrs. Robinson. "John was good enough to consider my wretched air-pocket nerves rather than his petrol."
"It's a couple of miles further," explained Robinson, "but my wife isn't such a stout flier as her mother, though the old lady is over seventy. My pilot was bringing her from Town one afternoon last week—took the Dorking-Leith Hill air-way, you know, always bumpy over there—and I suppose from all accounts he must have dropped her a hundred feet plumb, side-slipped and got into a spinning dive and only pulled the old bus out again when the furrows in a ploughed field below them had grown easily countable."
"Yes, it makes me shivery to think of," ejaculated Mrs. Robinson; "but mother really has extraordinary nerve. She wasn't in the least upset."
"No, not a little bit, by Jove!" added Robinson. "The old sport just leaned forward in her seat and, when James had adjusted his head-piece, she coolly reprimanded him for stunting without orders. Of course she doesn't know anything about the theory of the thing, you see."
With the dessert came letters by the late air post.
"Oh, please excuse me," said Millie, as she took them from the maid, "I see there's a reply from Auntie—the Edinburgh aunt, you know," she explained. "I wrote her this morning, imploring her to come over to-morrow for the bazaar. She's so splendid at that sort of thing."
"What my wife's aunt doesn't know about flying isn't worth knowing," remarked John with finality. "Why, she qualified for her ticket last year, and she'll never see forty again. How's that for an up-to-date aunt?"
"I doubt if she'll fly solo that distance, though," said Millie; "I don't think she ought to, either."
"Of course," said Robinson, "it's a bit of a strain for a woman of middle age to negotiate three hundred odd miles, even with a couple of landings for a cup of tea en route."
Millie rose. "Now, don't you men sit here for an hour discussing 'flying speeds,' 'gliding angles,' and all that sort of thing. I object to aero-maniacs on principle. I—" At that moment a peculiar noise, evidently in the near vicinity of the house, arrested the attention of the party.
"Sounded like something breaking," said Millie, going to the window, which overlooked the garden and a good-sized paddock beyond. John had already gone out to investigate.
In a minute or two he reappeared ushering in a very jolly-looking old gentleman in a flying suit.
"A thousand pardons, Mrs. Smith," said the new arrival; "John collected me in the paddock. Ha! ha! You know my theory about the paddock."
The guests having been introduced, explanations followed.
"You know my theory," began old Mr, Brown.
"Yes, rather; I should think we do," interrupted Millie, leading him to the most comfortable armchair "But," she quoted, "you are old, Mr. Brown; do you think at your age it is right?"
"Well, the theory's smashed, anyhow," said John decisively, "and so's my fence."
"No! no! I won't hear of it," laughed Brown; "I admit the fence, but not the theory. You see," he went on, turning to Mrs. Robinson, "I've always insisted, as Smith knows, that there's plenty of landing space in his paddock, provided you do it up wind. The fact is I glided in to-night from east to west. Thought I should be dead head on; but I believe I was a couple of points out in my reckoning and so failed to bring the old 'bus to a stand short of the fence. You know, Smith," he added, with an injured air, "you ought to have a wind-pointer rigged up so's there'd be no doubt about it."
"Just to encourage reckless old gentlemen to smash up my premises, I suppose," retorted John. "But I admit I found some consolation for my smashed fence when I observed the pathetic appearance of your under carriage, after your famous landing."
"And now," said Millie to Mr. Brown, "all will be forgotten and forgiven if you'll come into the drawing-room and let Mr. and Mrs. Robinson hear you sing that jolly song about
"'Come and have a flip
In a big H Pip,' etc.
"You know."
"The egg shortage notwithstand, the Easter egg rolling carnival at Preston, which dates back to mediaeval times, was, after a lapse of four years, celebrated with great musto."
Midland Paper.
Pre-war eggs, apparently.