“But we can’t drop the reporters,” laughed Ned.
“If you can land our stories and our pictures on the Herald roof,” exclaimed the editor with new interest, “you may dump the reporters in the Jersey flats and let ’em swim.”
“We’ll come over and look at the roof,” exclaimed Ned smiling. “The men can take a chance with us.”
“Now,” began the editor in a new tone, “with these business details out of the way, I want to ask something. I wish you’d explain to me how you are going to travel one hundred and eighty miles an hour.”
“To confess the truth,” answered Ned promptly, “it’ll be two hundred miles an hour. One hundred and eighty is our minimum.”
The editor’s face wore a puzzled look.
“This rate of two hundred miles an hour,” explained Ned, “involves no new ideas. That is the natural evolution from the sixty mile an hour rate due to a better built machine and more powerful engines. All aeroplanes will reach that speed in time just as railway trains go faster with more powerful engines, heavier road beds, better tracks and more daring engineers. But the Ocean Flyer has possibilities far beyond two hundred miles an hour—theoretically at least.”
“More than two hundred miles an hour?” gasped the journalist.
“Mathematically,” answered Ned. “I can hardly say how near practice will coincide with theory.”
“And how fast mathematically?” asked the Herald manager quizzically.