“To be sure,” declared Billy, “that’s the way lots of people always try to crawl through a little hole when caught with the goods on. Some of the others, I reckon, laughed it off, and admitted that they didn’t care to be blown up; that they got plenty of that sort of thing at home, as it was. But, Frank, how about our own program?”
“You mean about staying here and being ready to start off when we get the word—is that it, Billy?”
“Yes; shall we stick it out here the rest of the day?”
“I think,” said Frank, “none of us have any need to leave the place again until we start the motors and open up on the second trial spin, this time with some of the best British aviators along to observe how the Sea Eagle carries herself.”
“Do you think there will be a representative of the French Government aboard to take notes along the way?” asked Billy.
“That’s my understanding of the case,” he was told.
“Well, it ought to settle the matter of our business, Frank.”
“Just what it must,” came the reply. “We’ll give an exhibition of all the Sea Eagle is capable of doing in a way to make those other seaplanes look sick. Then we’ll expect to have the deal closed. That’s my understanding of the bargain.”
“But, Frank, whatever are we going to do for eats between now and to-morrow, when we come back from the raid up the coast?” asked Pudge, with a despairing expression on his fat face that would make anyone believe he had lost his last friend; or else just heard the news that he was to be hanged in three hours.
“I’ve fixed all that,” the other told him, “and right now I think I see the wagon coming with a lot of good stuff, such as can still be had in Dunkirk if you’ve got the francs to buy it with.”