“There certainly ain’t.”
“Go up or down easily?”
“Those levers you see operate a balancing device patented by the Major. As the weight shifts the air-ship is tilted, and the propellers do the rest. Say, Bob, them air-skimmers ain’t in it with this.”
“It certainly is more comfortable, and you have protection from the weather,” returned Bob, diplomatically.
“Sure! Why, it’s jim-dandy to stand here steerin’, an’ look over the landscape. Only—the Major don’t give us no rest. Sometimes he gits ’bout seven ideas a minute; an’ jist when we’re flyin’ good he’s apt to say, ‘Take her right down, Kindale. The whole crowd will have to hustle to-night.’”
“Then he is still working on it?” inquired Bob.
“Still working on it! Why, man alive, he’ll never git done tinkerin’ on it, the Major won’t—no siree. An’ if he ain’t the first man to cross the Atlantic in a balloon I miss my guess.”
“Well, I wish him luck. Mighty nice man, isn’t he?”
“He can be,” grinned Kindale, shrugging his shoulders. “No; the ‘Border City’ ain’t goin’ up to-day—pretty soon, though. Say, you had plenty o’ grit to go up in that skimmer.”
“Oh, not so much—after the first time.”