“Exactly what I hoped you would decide to do!” exclaimed the Colonel. “And you have already made a wonderful start. This ship you are financing—you would be surprised at the callers she has had; people from all over the world, looking her over, taking snapshots of her, writing down her dimensions. We could sell her tomorrow.”
“Have any changes been made recently?” asked Mr. Hammond.
“Not a thing,” said Colonel Porter. “Here are the original specifications.” He hunted up a long sheet of paper.
“Never mind the figures,” said Mr. Hammond hastily. “My clipping agency sends me about two a day, usually different, but they all agree that she contains ten million, two hundred thousand cubic feet and is twelve stories high amidship. You know that item seems to make a great hit with the public. What will her lifting power be, Port?”
“Well, hydrogen gives us eighty pounds to the thousand feet, and helium sixty pounds to the thousand. That works out to eight hundred thousand pounds. You can depend on four hundred tons of useful lift.”
“Gosh, that sounds like a lot!”
“It’s handy to have.”
“It does seem, Port, as though we ought to make more than seventy-five miles an hour with those five huge engines.”
“It can’t be done, Harry. Not with a ship that size.”
“Did you decide to use the new weave of linen cloth for the covering?”