"Will ye gang an' tak' a look at me eenstruments?" he asked mysteriously.
"Why, Tam?"
"Will ye, sir-r?"
Captain Blackie walked over to the machine and climbed up into the fuselage. What he saw made him gasp, and he came back to where Tam was standing, smug and self-conscious.
"You've been up to twenty-eight thousand feet, Tam?" asked the astonished Blackie. "Why, that is nearly a record!"
"A' doot ma baromeeter," said Tam; "if A' were no' at fochty thousand, A'm a Boche."
Blackie laughed.
"You're not a Boche, Tam," he said, "and you haven't been to forty thousand feet—no human being can rise eight miles. To get up five and a half miles is a wonderful achievement. Why did you do it?"
Tam grinned and slapped his long gloves together.