“Yes,” said Pudge proudly, “and I’m glad to announce that my knees are not so badly scraped as I thought they were. I think I deserve a whole lot of praise for making that long creep so well. It wasn’t much to you fellows, but a different proposition to one of my shape.”
“We’ll give you all the credit going, Pudge,” said Billy magnanimously. “But, Frank, we ought to get the plane rigged up again the first thing in the morning, oughtn’t we?”
“Not thinking of another flight over the battlefields, are you?” asked the fat chum, looking concerned again.
“No, we’re through taking all those risks,” Frank told him. “But you’re right about that, Billy. They may want us to deliver the plane over to them tomorrow, and it ought to be in apple-pie condition. I hope to close the contract, and then we can go back home.”
“Leaving the one sample machine,” demanded Billy, “and allowing the French Government to manufacture a certain number of others, paying our company a royalty on every seaplane built along the lines of our patents?”
“That about covers the case,” Frank agreed. “Of course, once we receive our pay, and hand the seaplane over, we have no further interest in what happens to it, although I’d hate to learn it had met with an accident.”
“You think, then, do you, Frank, that the German spies will keep on trying to steal or destroy the Sea Eagle?” asked Billy.
“If they get the chance they certainly will,” the other replied. “They know now that all the wonderful things they heard about it are true, and that a fleet of aircraft built on those same lines would make back-numbers of their Zeppelins and Taubes. But, as I said before, let the French Government do the worrying after the deal is closed.”
“But if this machine were blown to smithereens, Frank, our Company would stand to lose those royalties?” Pudge suggested.
“All of which is true enough, Pudge,” Frank told him, “but that’s something we can’t remedy, so we’ll have to trust to sheer luck.”