Blackie nodded.
"I thought it was. They have been cursing him all the evening—I mean, of course, the technical people," he added hastily, as though to emphasize the fact that the Imperial Air Service was above resentment. "Naturally they swore you had some kind of armor on your machine, and though we told them it was most unlikely, they insisted—you know what obstinate people these manufacturers are; in fact, they say that they saw it glitter," he laughed softly. "You see," he went on, "they don't understand this game. They can not understand why their wonderful"—he corrected himself swiftly—"why their gun did not get you. It would have been a terrible disappointment if they had brought you down and discovered that you were not sheeted in some new patent shell-proof steel."
"Oh, aye," said Tam, and he smiled, which was an unusual thing for Tam to do, and then he laughed, a deep, bubbling chuckle of laughter, which was even more unusual. "Oh, aye," he said again and was still laughing when he went out of the little anteroom.
He did not go back to his bunk, but made his way to the workshop, and when he went up the next morning he carried with him, carefully strapped to the fuselage, a sheet of tin which he had industriously cut and punched full of rivet-holes in the course of the night.
"And what are you going to do with that, Tam?" asked Blackie.
"That is ma new armor," said Tam solemnly. "'Tis a grand invention I made out of my own head."
"But what is the idea?" asked Blackie.
"Captain Blackie, sir-r," said Tam, "I have a theery, and if you have no objection I'd like to try it oot."
"Go ahead," said Blackie with a perplexed frown.