The young lieutenant saluted and turned abruptly on his heel.
Over the parade ground a biplane was hovering, darting this way and that, rising and falling with startling velocity.
"Who's that?" inquired the general approvingly.
"Schöningen," answered the adjutant.
The Imperial Commissioner felt in his breast-pocket for another cigar.
"Do you know, Ludwig," he remarked amiably as he struck a meditative match, "sometimes I more than half believe this 'Flying Ring' business is all rot!"
The adjutant looked pained.
"And yet," continued Von Helmuth, "if Bismarck could see one of those things," he waved his cigar toward the gyrating aeroplane, "he wouldn't believe it."