Then came the delicious moment of soaring upward—the ecstasy of feeling himself borne through the air as swiftly as the arrow from an archer’s bow and that sense of wonderful freedom which the airman alone can enjoy.
As before, he glanced downward, and a humorous thought came into his mind.
“Certainly I’m the biggest thirty feet that was ever known above the ground,” he murmured. “I hope I don’t fly to the moon.”
With astonishing rapidity the distant hangars, from hazy, indistinct objects, became strong and clear. He could see the students and instructors, watching, it seemed to him, with an interest and close attention that fired his spirit with the keenest determination to make a landing that would surprise them.
He did.
But the machine was not badly wrecked, nor was he himself injured by the fall of fifteen feet.
It was merely a case, Mittengale genially explained, in which the earth happened to be that many feet lower than it should have been.
Don said very little. It rather jarred his sensibilities to hear the mirthful laughter and bantering remarks and to see the Annamites towing an extraordinarily wobbling machine toward the repair shop. And, besides this, to add to his disturbed state of mind, the moniteur, a boyish chap named Boulanger, very loudly called attention to the error which had caused the accident, between times roundly scolding him.
“Quite a neat little bawling out!” chirped Dublin Dan, soothingly. “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken.”
“I don’t include that word in my vocabulary,” exclaimed Don, with a half smile.