"Their Fifth Arm was represented," said Raymond, sipping his burgundy, "by many Taubes and Aviatiks armed with the machine-gun and some ordinary bombs of schrapnel,—also a dirigible of 'Parsifal' type dropping big bombs. We were hampered in our offensive by a prejudice which does not trouble the Germans. To throw bombs upon friend and foe alike—that is not our idea of War. It annoyed me, and I wasted on that flatulent brute of a 'Parsifal' all my remaining fléchettes and little Morocco bombs. Aha, the côtelettes!"
A waiter set them before him. He tucked his napkin under his chin, and helped himself, and said:
"Thus, though I had damaged her steering-gear and riddled her outer envelope, and the Flying Pig wallowed in difficulties below me, I could not pursue the advantage I had got. When the pilot of an Aviatik launched himself to the rescue, all the ammunition of my carabine was exhausted. I had one cartridge left in my automatic revolver, and not a single bomb with which to return the compliments of the German's mitraille. My petrol-tank had been perforated. My single bullet missed him. The duel was too unequal, so I withdrew from the field, leaving him to cavalier the Flying Pig. We may meet again upon terms more equal, when French military aviators fight with machine-guns. And now to business. It concerns your gyroscopic stabiliser, the patent of which my Chiefs desired to buy for the use of our Service Aëronautique. You demanded, according to M. Jourdain's statement, £8,000 and a royalty for the world-patent. We will buy it of you outright for £12,000. Is it agreed?"
Sherbrand straightened in his chair, and said, looking the other squarely in the eyes:
"No, sir, thank you! You see, though the War Office wouldn't have anything to say to me——"
"It occurs to you that now you may find a market for your invention?" To the devil with this smug young British tradesman! thought Raymond behind his knitted brows. "Come!" he said. "Another proposal. Will you make and supply us with your hawk-hoverer? Or sell us the right to manufacture a thousand for the sole use of the S. Aë.? Name your price—I shall not be frightened. It is not State money, but my private fortune that I draw upon—with the approval of my Chiefs. It has been my whim to lavish on my escadrille what other men hang in jewels upon their mistresses. Efficiency is my vice. I have heard of worse!" He scrawled some invisible figures with a polished finger-nail upon the tablecloth and exclaimed, with a laugh and a shrug: "Sapristi! At even a hundred pounds apiece you would soon be a millionaire, even without the fortune you expect from your War Office! Upon occasion it pays to be a patriot. Decide, Monsieur, lest my patience run dry before my purse!"
"I've not asked you a hundred, sir," Sherbrand said with his disarming simplicity. "I can make and sell the hoverers at a profit for £60. It's the cutting and welding of the horizontal flanged screws with the acetylene flame that eats up that money. But for the cost of the process, hang it!—I'd have had more than seventy ready by me now."
"You have seventy, you say, laid by in readiness?"
"Laid by in grease," said Sherbrand, "at the aërodrome."
"Waiting the moment when the authorities at Whitehall awaken to the fact that you are a genius, mon ami! À la bonne heure! We buy your seventy equilibrisers!"