"Oh, we'll manage it. There's plenty of wire about, and we can hunt up something that will do for stays."
They worked energetically all the afternoon. Templeton's patience and ingenuity triumphed over all difficulties. The tank slipped off several times, but at last it was firmly fixed with an elaborate arrangement of stays and wire, and when Mrs. Trenchard returned, between five and six o'clock, she beheld her guests careering round the farmyard, making a trial trip.
"Well, I never did see!" she exclaimed, pulling up the horse at the gate. "Whatever hev happened to the old tricycle?"
Eves waved his hand gleefully.
"Splendid!" he cried, as Templeton halted the machine beside the cart. "A new invention, Mrs. Trenchard."
"'Tis like the butcher's contraption I saw in the town, only the box is behind instead of afore. What be the hidden meaning of that, I'd like to know?"
"It won't be hidden long, Mrs. Trenchard. But the sun will be hidden; there'll be an eclipse to-night."
"Go along with your rubbish, Mr. Eves. The sun will go down at his proper time, whatever the clocks do say; they Parlyment men up along at Lunnon can't make no eclipses, don't think it."
"Templeton means to; don't you, Bob?"
"He does talk rubbish, Mrs. Trenchard," said Templeton, earnestly. "All that he means is that we're going to try making a thick smoke, to see if we can hide our ships from the German submarines."