“Are you going to show me this machine, boy?” shouted Mr. Hunt, his temper now fairly gone. Had Stonington Hunt possessed control of his rage, he might have been many times a millionaire, but his ungovernable temper had lost him many a good chance, as he termed them.
“Why—no, I don’t believe I care to,” quavered Paul, rather undecidedly. “You see, it isn’t patented yet, and——”
“Shut up!” hissed Tubby anxiously. He did not know that Mr. Hunt was already in possession of this important piece of knowledge.
“You brats make me tired,” snarled the former broker viciously. He turned with angry emphasis and flourished his stick, striding toward the gate.
Tubby politely held it open for him. The broad grin on his face was unmistakable. It infuriated Hunt to a still greater degree.
“Stonington Hunt was never beaten yet,” he snapped, “and when he is, it won’t be by a bunch of half-baked school kids. You, sir”—turning angrily on Tubby—“go to blazes!”
“After you,” exclaimed the fat boy, with a low bow, and holding the gate open to its fullest extent.
CHAPTER XI.
THE ARMY AIRSHIP.
Lieutenant Duvall proved as good as his word. One afternoon, not long before cold weather set in in real earnest, Rob received word that if, on the ensuing Saturday, he and his two chums would call at the old mansion they would be enabled to see for themselves the aeroplane with which the army was experimenting, Lieutenant Duvall having been selected to make the tests. If the weather proved right, the note added, there was even a possibility that a short flight might be attempted, just to show the boys something of the newest idea in army equipment.
“Gee, I envy you fellows,” said Paul Perkins wistfully, when he heard of the contemplated excursion. “I’d give anything to see an aeroplane in action.”