The car was speeding out of Jersey City on the marsh road westward toward Arlington.
“If every flight we have made over these marshes had left a mark in the air,” remarked Alan, “that sky up there would look like a waffle.”
“Are all three of you equally old in this aviation business?” asked the editor smiling and unconsciously looking skyward as if he really expected to see a maze of aerial paths.
“Bob is what we call an auxiliary,” explained Alan. “He hasn’t flown as often as he wanted to but he’s no tenderfoot. However, his chance is comin’. He’ll have to make a full hand on this ocean trip.”
“Will it require three of you to operate the machine?” the editor asked.
“Four,” answered Ned. “There’s a young man out at the works, Roy Osborne—the son of the chief engineer—who has had experience all over the country. He’ll probably be the fourth member of the crew.”
“Tell me what each one does,” asked the editor straightening up and grasping his Panama to make sure the speeding car did not tear it from his head. “Talk about two hundred miles an hour,” he added with a grimace as he saw forty-five miles indicated on the speedometer, “this is enough for me.”
“Me too,” announced Ned to the editor’s surprise. “There’s more sense of speed right now in this car goin’ forty-five miles an hour—and more real danger too,” he added positively—“than there is in an airship going sixty miles an hour. In the air, our road bed is perfect. Here a rut may pitch the whole machine over the fence. High up in the air you have no objects along your path to measure flight. The ground is so far away that it is no criterion. In the air, at your highest speed, there is almost no sense of motion. It’s like a swiftly ascending balloon in which you can only judge your flight by tossing paper overboard.”
“Tommy rot,” broke in Bob, “you talk as if you were selling aeroplanes. Ruts in the road! There are more ‘ruts,’ ‘holes,’ ‘pockets’ and ‘chasms’ in the air than you’ll find on the worst roads on the ground. And that ain’t all! You can’t see ’em till you’re in ’em. The death record this year tells what they mean too. As for bein’ no danger, give me an automobile and a place to fall even if it is hard.”
“Then you’re not going?” asked the editor wonderingly.