"This is all very wonderful, Mr Parmenter, but I am glad that you are here ahead of time, because the comet is too; and very considerably, I am sorry to say."
"Eh, what's that you say, Mr Lennard?" replied the millionaire in a hurried whisper. "Nothing serious, I hope. We haven't come too late, have we? I mean too late to stop the war and save the world."
"I don't know about stopping the war," replied Lennard, "but, if no accident happens or is arranged for, we can save the world still, I think."
"Accident arranged for?" echoed Mr Parmenter. "What do you mean by that? Are you talking about John Castellan and those Flying Fish things of his? I reckon we've got enough here to send him and his Flying Fishes into the sea and make them stop there. We've heard all about what they've been doing in the States, and I've got about tired of them. And as for this old invasion of England, it's got to stop right away, or we'll make more trouble for these Germans and Frenchmen and Russians and Austrians than they ever dreamt of.
"Look at that fleet, sir. Twenty-five aërial battleships with a hundred and fifty miles an hour speed in them. Here to London in one hour and twenty-five minutes or less, and guns—you just take a look at those exaggerated peashooters we've got on deck, and believe me, sir, that if we get one of John Castellan's Flying Fishes within six thousand yards of the end of one of those things it will do no more flying, except in very small pieces."
"I'm delighted to hear it, Mr Parmenter," replied Lennard, in a low tone, "for to tell you the truth, we haven't many weeks left now. Something that I can so far neither calculate nor explain has changed the orbit of the comet and it's due here at midnight on the thirtieth of April."
"Great Scott, and this is the nineteenth of March! Not six weeks! I guess we'll have to hurry up with those cannons. I'll send a cable to Pittsburg to-morrow. Anyhow, I reckon the comet can wait for to-night."
While Mr Parmenter had been speaking two other men had come down the ladder from the deck of the airship and he continued:
"Now, let me introduce you. This is my old friend and college chum, Newson Hingeston, the man who invented the model we built this fleet on. This is Mr Hiram Roker, chief engineer of the fleet and Lord High Admiral of the air, when Mr Hingeston is not running his own ships."
Lennard shook hands with Mr Hingeston and Hiram, and was going to say very complimentary things about the fleet which had literally dropped from the clouds, when Mr Parmenter interrupted him again and said: