“That’ll be up to the Herald,” announced Ned, “and we’ll have to talk it over. I have an idea that the newspaper can arrange for some special permit. If it can’t there’ll have to be some figuring.”
“We can’t chance that,” urged Alan. “There’ll be trouble enough without fighting the London police. Two or three hours conversation in some police station would upset everything.”
“Well,” announced Ned as he paid the check—he was usually the banker for the three boys—“we can’t settle anything sitting here. Let’s hurry down to the office.”
Calling a taxicab, the trio hastened down Broadway to Fifth Avenue and south on that street to an old fashioned brick residence yet standing almost within the shadow of the Flatiron building. There was nothing on the windows to indicate the nature of the business of the house. Hurrying inside, the boys paused for a few moments in a large room at the right, the front windows of which looked out on the avenue. They were apparently familiar with the place, the contents of which no longer left a doubt as to the kind of business transacted in the house.
Framed photographs, wash-drawings and scale plans of aeroplanes hung on all walls. On the old-fashioned marble mantle was a confusion of odds and ends: samples of balloon cloth, rubberized silk, gossamerlike aeroplane covering; thin bars and blocks of steel; a bundle of strips of wood that had apparently been scientifically tested. Above these, tacked to the wall, was a small white flag or burgee on which, in faded red, appeared the word “Cibola.” This was the flag carried on the first aerial craft made by Ned and Alan, the dirigible balloon with which the Aztec temple was discovered on the hidden mesa in Navajo land.
On one side of the room two desks, their tops down and locked and covered with dust, bore end plates marked “Mr. Napier” and “Mr. Hope.” On the other side of the room was a flat desk. The top was a special map of the United States, Canada and Mexico covered with a sheet of beveled glass the exact size of the desk. On an adjoining small desk stood a covered typewriter. While Ned and Alan opened their desks, Bob left the room and made a tour of three rooms in the rear. In the two middle rooms a half dozen elderly and sedate men were busy on books. All showed deference to Bob above his years. But, beyond shaking hands as if he had been some days absent, there was little conversation.
In a rear room it was different. A square shouldered man was in charge. Between the windows was a breast-high, glass-encased, recording instrument ticking off the seconds of Washington Naval Observatory time. Over this, the second hand of a large clock jerked forward monotonously. At one side, on a table, reposed several compasses. On two desks were small engineering instruments, books, nautical almanacs and drawing tools.
“Well, Lieutenant,” exclaimed Bob, “how’s the ‘old calculator’?”
“Oh, the major seems to get a new idea each day,” responded the man, shaking hands. “How’s the Flyer?”
The details of the previous night’s test were described.