"Yes," I said, "exactly—Maryland."
I was more than ever reinforced in my already-expressed opinion that Mr. Carville was a man of more ability than ambition. There was to me something bizarre in his deliberate abstention from any contact, save books, with the larger intellectual sphere to which he by right belonged. His naïve confession of culture showed that he was aware of his latent power, but I was not sure whether he had ever realized the stern law by which organs become atrophied by disuse. We had reached our station and were struggling up Pine Street through rain and wind before I ventured to hint at my concern.
"Ah!" he said. "I daresay you're right in a way. But——" The wind blew his voice away, so that he seemed to be speaking through the telephone, "——I've a family to think of."
We parted at the door, and I hurried to tell the news to my friends. They smiled when I spoke of Mr. Carville.
"We've had news, too," said Bill, helping me to spinach. "A paper from Cecil."
"Copy of The Morning," added Mac. It is a rule of the house that there be no papers on the table, so I possessed my soul in patience until after dinner. My cigar going well, and Mac thundering the "Soldiers' Chorus," from Faust, on the piano, I opened the paper which Bill handed to me. To be honest, I was a little startled. The chief item on the news page was headed:
AEROPHONE MESSAGE FROM CARVILLE; OVER HELIGOLAND; ALARM IN GERMANY.
Copyright by The London "Morning."
The special article of the day was headed: "The Napoleon of the Air; a Character Sketch," and the leader, signed by Lord Cholme himself, was a pæan, in stilted journalese, in praise of the Morning's enterprise in encouraging invention.
"The Empire," wrote Lord Cholme, "can no longer afford to pass by one of her most brilliant sons. In the light of his magnificent achievement, the daring of a Peary, the nerve of a Shackleton, the indomitable persistence of a Marconi, dwindle and fade. We do not hesitate to say that since the capture of Gibraltar, the Empire has secured no such chance for consolidating her paramountcy in Europe. The present is no time for hesitation or delay. Mr. Carville is master of the situation. By his message from the air, three thousand feet above Heligoland, in full view of German territory, to the office of The Morning, he has demonstrated the efficiency of his machine. If that is not sufficient, Mr. Carville's next journey will convince Europe, if not England. If the pettifogging Radical Government turn a deaf ear to our brilliant correspondent, if they ignore his claims and chaffer in any commercial spirit with his accredited agents, their days are numbered. It is hardly too much to say that the days of the Empire are also numbered...."