“That’s different,” answered Alan. “That proposition stands like the answer to two plus two. We all concede this is four.”
“And you mean to say that you may send this thing seven or eight miles up in the air where a bird couldn’t live and where it may be sixty degrees below zero, on the theory that your funnel will gather in air for you and make heat enough to keep you from freezing?” added the editor.
“Just that,” laughed Ned, “although, of course we don’t have to stay up there. If anything goes wrong we’ve got our oxygen and we’ll have clothing, too, that Peary or Cook might have used.”
“But it will work,” went on Alan with equal enthusiasm, “and the man at that desk, with his air-pressure gauges for each room and his stop cocks for each compartment, will keep us as comfortable as if we were at sea level and he’ll keep our engines running without a break.”
“Stewart,” suddenly exclaimed the apparently embarrassed editor turning to his reporter, “your story about this marvelous craft was killed last night because the Herald hoped to make an arrangement with these young men, its designers and owners, to make a trip across the Atlantic to London in the interest of the paper. This has been made. I think the assignment will be the biggest newspaper beat ever achieved. What you are now hearing is confidential.”
“Yes, sir,” responded Buck. “Can’t I go along?”
“I was just about to say,” went on the editor, “that, for a short time, I was disposed to ask the privilege of having a representative on board and that I meant to select you—”
“And you can’t find a place for me?” Buck interrupted with the fetching little twist of the mouth that had caught Ned.
“The only place open was this desk,” explained Ned.
“I can do it,” exclaimed Buck.