As soon as the girls got out of the cockpit, he was beside them, introducing his companion to them.
"This is Mr. Eckers," he said. "He is crazy to meet two girls who want to be mechanics. He never heard of one before."
"Yet we're quite human," laughed Louise. "Almost normal, I think."
"Well, you see," explained Eckers, "we have several young ladies here who are studying to be pilots—even commercial and transport pilots—but we never had a mechanic of your sex before. But that's no reason why you shouldn't succeed."
"I'm not so good myself," remarked Louise. "And I may not take that course after all, because I'm not even any kind of pilot yet. But I'd like to see a man who knows more about the inside of his car than Miss Carlton does. She takes it apart as easily as most girls make fudge."
"Oh, Lou——" protested Linda, blushing, but Ted changed the subject by asking them about their trip.
After a few preliminaries, such as going into the office and meeting the secretary and a couple of the other instructors, and signing up for their doctor's examination, the girls bade Ted good-by, and took a taxi for the station where they were to meet Miss Carlton.
It was amusing to find that the train was late, whereas they had bettered their own schedule in the airplane. It arrived at last, however, and Miss Carlton hurried anxiously forward, as usual expecting that something had probably happened to her niece. She was relieved to find both girls well and happy.
"We might as well all go to a hotel tonight," she suggested, "and have a good dinner, and take in a picture afterwards. There can't be any rush about your finding your boarding-house, is there?"
"Only that we begin work tomorrow," replied Linda. "We must be there at nine o'clock for our examinations."