The questions flew fast and Roger covered his ears as if they overwhelmed him. He answered his mother's question first.
"He's due to-morrow, Mother. They're starting right this minute to put up the tent he's going to use for his hangar. It's down side of the steamboat dock. His machine is what they call a hydro-aeroplane—"
"It will go both in the water and in the air?"
"So I understand. I saw a picture of it and it looked to me as if it could go on land, too, for men were pulling it down to the water's edge on its own wheels."
"Probably the engine doesn't work the wheels, though."
"Probably not enough for it to travel far on them. He starts off on the water, anyway, and then he rises from the water and the machine goes along like any aeroplane. It's a biplane."
"Meaning?" queried Ethel Brown.
"That it has two planes—two sets of wings on each side."
"You didn't tell us whether he's going to carry passengers."
"I don't know. I asked, but nobody seemed ready to answer."