“Just splendid,” laughed Peggy, merrily, “and, doctor, I’ve often heard you say to father that it was a physician’s duty to keep pace with modern invention.”
“Quite right! Quite right! I often told your poor father so,” cried Dr. Mays. “Well, my dear, it may be revolutionary and unbecoming to a man of my years, but I actually believe I will brave a new element in that flying machine of yours. More especially as we can reach my young patient much quicker in that way.”
While Dr. Mays, who was a widower and childless, went to hunt up an old cap, as headgear for his novel journey, Roy obtained permission to use the doctor’s telephone. He called up Jess’s home and related briefly to Mrs. Bancroft what had occurred, and asked that an automobile be sent to the scene of the accident.
Mrs. Bancroft, who at first had been seriously alarmed, was reassured by Roy’s quiet manner of breaking the news to her, and promised to come over herself at once. By this time Doctor Mays was ready, and the young people noted, not without amusement, that under his assumed air of confidence the benevolent old gentleman was not a little worried at the idea of braving what was to him a new element.
The Golden Butterfly was equipped with a small extension seat at the stern of her chassis, and into this Roy dropped after it had been pulled out. Dr. Mays was seated in the centre, as being the heaviest of the party, while Peggy resumed her place at the steering and driving apparatus.
“All ready behind?” she called out, laughingly, as they settled down.
“All right here, my dear,” responded the doctor with an inward conviction that all was wrong.
“Go ahead, sis,” cried Roy. “Hold tight, doctor, to those straps on the side.”
With a roar and a whirring thunder of its exhausts the motor was started up. Dr. Mays paled, but, as Roy afterward expressed it, “he was dead game.” Forward shot the aeroplane across the hitherto peaceful pasture lot which was now turned into a crazy circus of terrified animals.
“Wh-wh-when are we going up?”