“Interesting?” flashed back the operator, angrily noting the condition in his “log book.”
“Maybe it is, but I call it darned mean. It's almost like trying to work in a power station.”
“Indeed?” queried Kennedy. “I beg your pardon—I was only looking at it from the purely scientific point of view. Who is it, do you suppose?”
“How do I know? Some amateur, I guess. No professional would butt in this way.”
Kennedy took a leaf out of his note-book and wrote a short message which he gave to a boy to deliver to Norton.
“Detach your gyroscope and dynamo,” it read. “Leave them in the hangar. Fly without them this afternoon, and see what happens. No use to try for the prize to-day. Kennedy.”
We sauntered out on the open part of the field, back of the fence and to the side of the stands, and watched the fliers for a few moments. Three were in the air now, and I could see Norton and his men getting ready.
The boy with the message was going rapidly across the field. Kennedy was impatiently watching him. It was too far off to see just what they were doing, but as Norton seemed to get down out of his seat in the aeroplane when the boy arrived, and it was wheeled back into the shed, I gathered that he was detaching the gyroscope and was going to make the flight without it, as Kennedy had requested.
In a few minutes it was again wheeled out.
The crowd, which had been waiting especially to see Norton, applauded.