It chanced that there seemed to be a dearth of news that evening, so they could spend the time after dinner in other ways than “going into a huddle,” as Perk put it, and having a siege of explanations and surmises.
Mr. Herriott coaxed Perk to speak of his early experiences, partly when over in France, during war times, then later on with the Mounted Police up in Northwest Canada, and also as one of the early pilots carrying the mails, as far as was done in those bygone days and nights.
When Perk was once fairly aroused he apparently lost his customary bashfulness, and could tell a story that brought out more than a few laughs because of what queer things he narrated, and his comical way of relating the same, his expressive freckled face all working with imitations of how other men did their talking.
“I never sits so comfy in the cabin o’ a up-to-date tri-motored airship these here days,” he went on to remark, when well started, “with all sorts o’ instruments to navigate by, that I doant think ’baout heow we don’t fly any more by jest instinct, like we uster do when the Wright boys was a perfectin’ their fust crude heavier’n air flyin’ ship. Today, suh, we sits at the controls, an’ keeps aour eyes on aour instruments all the time, an’ doan’t care a red cent what aour wonderful instincts say ’baout it.”
“I never thought about that fact, Wally,” Mr. Herriott hastened to exclaim; “please go on, and tell us something more along that same line. You certainly must have passed through some strange experiences, I’d say.”
“Shucks! but it shore does make me laugh aout loud when I looks back to them early days, an’ ’members the funny way we used to find aout whether the silly bus was a movin’ up, er daown, to the left, or to the right. The very fust instrument, if yeou could call it that, to ease up on the instinct way o’ doin’ was invented by one o’ them smart Wright brothers. Say, it was on’y a light piece o’ string, tied jest in front o’ the pilot’s face. When we was a goin’ near ten miles an hour, mebbe fifteen at a stretch, we kept an eye on that string right along, an’ could tell what the ole ship was adoin’, ’cause like it might a been if she floated in the wind straight at aour face we knowed we was keepin’ on a level keel—if it went daown a bit why we was climbin’ some; if the string struck us in the forehead in course the plane must be droppin’; and same way if it flowed to the right, or the left. An’ say, I never did know that early Wright invention to kick over the traces, an’ fool me any.”
Even Jack apparently had never heard about that clever device, however primitive it might seem when placed alongside the wonderful means at present used to ascertain the same things—such as slipping, skidding, turning, climbing, or diving—today the experienced pilot watches the air-speed instrument, his compass, the bank and turn indicator. Only by placing entire dependence on the instruments in the cockpit can a pilot fly with any certainty in foggy weather, when it is utterly impossible to see any fixed point, either on the earth below or in the heavens above.
And this is only one great change made in both the construction of the airship in these modern days, as well as the helping hand given the pilot through the clever devices by which he is confronted when sitting at the controls.
Taken in all Perk spent a very pleasant evening with the Herriotts, and on their part they had a most uproarious time, the children particularly in romping with the jolly chap from the North.
It was with considerable eagerness that Perk bounded out of bed on the ensuing morning, and rushed to a window to ascertain what the chances were for a promising day in the coast skyways.