Colonel Howell, apparently taking this as a surrender, caught the two boys by their shoulders and exclaimed:
“It’s gettin’ late. Lock up your shop and let’s go and see what your fathers think of my project.”
Elated and nervous, the boys turned and, as if under a hypnotic spell, began to push the car into the aerodrome. And once inside the little building, with set lips, as if working his courage up to that point, Norman broke the silence by saying: “I was going to make my first trip to the States this winter.”
“Next summer would be a better time. Why don’t you go in style?” asked Colonel Howell. “We’ll come out in the spring and we ought to have a comfortable enough home during the bad weather. You can’t spend your money and when you get back home you can make your trip and go all over the States.”
Both boys looked at him as if not knowing what to say next.
“I never hired any aviators,” went on Colonel Howell, with his old smile coming back, “and I don’t know the union price of aerial operators, but I’ll give you your board and keep and three hundred dollars a month apiece while you’re with me. How does that strike you?”
“I don’t think we’ll be worth it,” were the only words that Roy could find to express his dazed feelings.
“But you don’t know anything about that,” said Colonel Howell promptly. “You might easily be worth a great deal more.”
While the colonel spoke, he could not help noticing Norman’s rapid calculation on the ends of his fingers.
“In April, that would be nine months,” remarked Norman at last, “and that’s twenty-seven hundred dollars. We could go to France on that, Roy,” he added suddenly. “Let’s lock up and go home.”