Mr. Hammond came in from the control room. “Almost there!” he said. “I have almost worn that indicator out, looking at it. But I know we have made the grade.”
“We all congratulate you, Mr. Hammond,” said Doctor Trigg.
“We do indeed,” added Doctor Sims.
“I have already been approached by Parker’s Magazine for an article on this journey,” said Doctor Trigg. “I should like you to peruse the manuscript before I send it to them. I want to publish it with your personal approval.”
“And I,” said Doctor Sims, “am about to finish a valuable monograph on ‘Epitaphs of the World, Past and Present,’ a book which contains the fruit of twenty years of search and selection. I should like to dedicate it, with an appropriately commendatory inscription, to your daughter.”
“To me?” cried Dulcie, flinging her arms around Doctor Sims in a quick hug. “How splendid! Won’t the girls at college be green with envy?”
Doctor Sims looked at her. “My dear,” he said, “you are kind to accept it. It is all an old man who loves you has to offer. To write an appropriate book for you would tax Orpheus and put Sappho to shame.”
“You are very kind, doctor,” Mr. Hammond replied; then turning to Dulcie, “My dear, I want you to pick yourself out a nice little roadster in New York.”
“Isn’t daddy a dear?” asked Dulcie of the world at large.
“You have earned it,” said Mr. Hammond, and went into the control room to gloat once more over the speed indicator.