"What great luck to have Colin Beverly break in on us just at the time when my fortunes had reached their lowest ebb," Jack kept saying to himself.
At last Tom came back. Jack could read success in his looks, even before the other had had a chance to open his mouth and say a single word.
"It's all right then, I take it, Tom?" he exclaimed impulsively.
"Didn't have any trouble at all in interesting the general," replied the messenger joyfully. "He said he'd see to having an urgent call go out to hurry the notifications along, and almost promised they'd get here by two this afternoon."
"And how about the plane business?"
"That's all settled in the bargain. I have written permission to make use of our plane, turning it over to a certain agent in Dunkirk after we've arrived there. The general will send a message over to us which we're to deliver at the same time we give up the machine."
"Great work, Tom! I've always said you'd make a mighty fine diplomatic agent, if ever you tried, and now I know it."
"No soft-soap business, please. If it had been anybody but the general I'd have surely fallen down on my job. But you know he's always had an interest in us, Jack."
"Do you think he suspected anything?" asked the other.
"Sure he did, but not the thing, for nobody in the wide world would ever dream we were planning such an unheard of thing as a non-stop flight across the Atlantic."