The Hun submarine then thought it time to butt in. This she did most neatly but none the less completely by running her nose into the resistless structure of the jibbing seaplane. Her rate of speed was but three or four knots, but that was enough. Amidst the rending of struts, the crashing of the shattered floats and the harp-like twang of severed tension-wires the luckless 445B turned absolutely over and disappeared beneath the waves, leaving pilot and observer struggling in the water.
"Dash it all!" soliloquised Fuller as he struck out for the submarine. "This is the second time the Huns have nabbed me. I'll bet there'll be a third. Just my rotten luck. Come on, old bird, half a dozen more strokes. They are going to heave us out of the ditch."
CHAPTER XIV
BUTTERFLY
"I SAY, pater."
"Eh?" ejaculated Peter Barcroft without looking up from his work, which happened to be revising a proof.
"I saw Betty Deringhame last night. I forgot to tell you," began Billy as a "preliminary canter" to the recital of his raid-night adventure.
"More fool you," grumbled his parent.
"I beg your pardon——" began the flight-sub, rather taken aback not by his sire's brusqueness, for Barcroft Senior when engaged in the non-creative work of proof-reading was like a bear with a sore head, but by the off-hand manner in which he had received the announcement of the girl's name.
"Look here!" exclaimed Peter, throwing down his pen and incidentally bespattering with ink the long, narrow sheet of printed matter. "Why on earth you want me to preach you a homily on the evils of betting——"