“You are quite sure no one has seen them?”
“Other than my father, no one. I have not even tried to read them myself.”
Lieutenant Purcell glanced at his superior officer.
“He has an idea that may mean a great deal,” said Major Squiers. “In carrying out his theory of turning liquid hydrogen into free gas again he has also suggested an apparatus that may solve a difficult problem. We won’t try to go into it technically, my son, but I want to show these drawings to the department. Will you trust them to me?”
Overjoyed, Morey gave ready acquiescence. Then he exclaimed:
“Do you think I could have his machine patented?”
Major Squiers laughed and shook his head.
“My son,” he explained, “that apparatus is one of the missing links in the theory of carrying liquid hydrogen in balloons. The government of every progressive nation is now searching for it. If we decide that your father’s plans are practicable I will undertake to say that the War Department will buy them outright. But they will never be patented. It will be an aeronautical secret to be guarded jealously from the rest of the world. Are you prepared to sell them outright?”
Morey sprang up radiant. He took the loose sheets from the table, put them tremblingly in order and placed them in Major Squiers’s hands.
“You are to do with them whatever you think best. I have no suggestions to make, and no conditions.”