“Glidden,” said the night city editor, turning to the oldest reporter of the three, “didn’t you write a Sunday story a few weeks ago on ‘The Limit of the Automobile’?”
“Yes, sir,” was the prompt reply of the pleased young journalist.
“Have you some ideas on the possibilities of the aeroplane?”
“I have,” was the prompt reply. If Glidden had gone further he would have added, “I’m getting up another story on that line now.”
“That’s good,” broke in Mr. Latimer. “We’re going to print a big aeroplane story in the morning. I want a ‘lead.’ The man on the story can’t write it. I can’t tell you anything except that this story concerns the first real airship. Give me half a column of what a real aeroplane ought to do—”
“It ought to go ten miles up in the air,” broke in Glidden impulsively as if anxious to demonstrate that he really had some ideas, “and the time will come when the flying machine will stay in the air more than five days. It will carry fifty people, cross the Atlantic or Pacific and sail two hundred miles an hour—”
“That’s enough,” laughed the editor. “Our machine does two hundred miles. Go to it.”
Glidden, who should have had Stewart’s assignment on the aeroplane story, wanted to ask more but he was too wise to do so. A few minutes later he was back at his typewriter, nervous and excited over the part he was to take in the making of the next morning’s “beat.”
The work of the third man was better known to Mr. Latimer.
“Winton,” he began as if sure that his orders would be carried out to the letter, “you’ve heard of the Airship Boys—those Chicago youngsters who have been starring in aeronautics for several years?”