Down went her nose—down, down. The air screamed about our ears. The earth rushed up to meet us, as it always seems to do. Truth to tell, by my own fault, I had had a nasty nose-dive, but I righted her and, touching the grass, managed to pull up dead.
Teddy, who had been watching it all, never turned a hair.
Only when I shut off the roar of the engine, he remarked:
“By Jove! Devilish good landing! That nose-dive was rather a nasty one, Claude—wasn’t it?”
And, unstrapping himself, he hopped out and sought his cigarette-case from his hip-pocket, as was his habit.
We were close against the big, rather ugly country house, therefore, leaving the machine, we went up and soon found its owner—a retired colonel of the usual JP type—hard on poachers when on the County Bench, I expect.
Still, he welcomed us warmly and was, we found, quite a good sort.
I asked him to take us aside, and he conducted us to the library, a fine old-fashioned room lined with brown-backed books.
There I told him the truth—of what we were after.
“Well,” said the white-haired old man, looking me up and down, “you seem a pretty keen young fellow, and your friend also. If you are over here on such a mission then I hope you will, both of you, consider yourselves my guests. I’ve a big barn beyond the stables where I can garage your machine quite well.”