“Maybe you will get a chance,” said Rob kindly, and when the banker’s son reached home that night he ’phoned to Lieutenant Duvall to know if he could bring along a member of the Eagle Patrol who was deeply interested in aeronautics. The reply was in the affirmative, and Paul’s delight was huge when he received word that he could be one of the party.
“I never saw a real aeroplane except in a picture before,” he exclaimed, “and if I can get a good look at one, I’m going to try to work out an idea I’ve got in my head.”
“What’s that, Mister Edison, Junior?” teased Tubby.
The boys were gathered in the wagon shed in which the wonderful, though untried, motor-scooter stood, awaiting the days when the Inlet would be frozen over for its trial trip.
“Well,” said Paul, rather diffidently, “I’m afraid you fellows will laugh at me if I tell you what it is.”
“No, we won’t,” Merritt assured him, tossing the core of a red-checked apple out of the open door.
“We’ll be mum as oysters,” chimed in Rob. “Go ahead, Paul, unfold thy mar-velous plan.”
“It’s a sort of variation on the ice motor car,” explained Paul. “It came to me last year when we were sledding down Jones’s hill outside the village. It’s just this, why couldn’t a fellow fit a sled with a pair of wings?”
“Gee whiz!” groaned Tubby, pretending to roll off the empty nail keg on which he was seated, and tapping his forehead meaningly. “Another bright young mind gone—clean gone.”
“Go ahead, Paul. Never mind him. He’s got a rush of fat to the head,” laughed Merritt reassuringly, for the diffident Paul had stopped and colored up at the stout youth’s ridicule.