"Yes."
"Do you know the pilot?"
"No. I believe he's away with Esdaile in the country at present."
"Well, he can be getting ready to come back to town. It's down for Trinity term. I should say the whole action turns on him. Worrying sort of thing to have to go through on the top of a bad crash, but the Scepter's got to fight it. If flying ever comes to anything the position's got to be made clear."
"If it comes to anything?" I queried idly....
"Apart from Hay's point of view, I mean. I don't see myself that it's achieved very much yet outside war. Too risky and uncertain altogether. There isn't a flyer on the Rhine at present who'll take his leave by aeroplane; he might lose a day. And if this Atlantic flight does come off it'll be rather like Channel-swimming—done once and then not again for another forty years. Just a record. I can't see there's much more in it yet."
Here Atkinson's voice struck in. I hadn't heard him enter.
"Yes, but what about other places—Australia, for instance? It's catching on there all right from what I'm told. Say you've a station ninety miles from your front door to your back. An aeroplane'll do in an hour or two what it would take you two or three days to do in a buggy. Any number of these fellows are running their private planes now. And we're making the machines."