“Exactly, doctor—after I had obtained a firm hold of the book. Then I went deeply into the subject, but I had thought about the matter previously.”
“Indeed, Mr Falcon, I was not aware of that. Maybe it was after you had studied and appropriated some of Scudder’s notions?”
“Mind, Peters, what you are insinuating.”
“Quite so! I merely say and mean that you, as a man of action, felt called upon to give life, energy and force to Scudder’s proposals, having most likely modified and improved his early conceptions.”
“Well, there’s something in the way you now put it, doctor, for it is unquestionable that my own views present a more attractive programme, if I may use the term, than Scudder’s did.”
“And who the dickens is Scudder, pray?”
“Scudder himself hails from Holland.”
“Ay, he is the veritable Flying Dutchman, no doubt; but is he a man of aeronautical experience, Mr Falcon?”
“Not so much as I am, doctor.”
“Indeed! Where have you matriculated?”