“But it never will work, will it—for Poke’s purposes, I mean?”
Lon rubbed his chin. “Well, I dunno. Somehow, way I’m built in mind and body, I kinder fancy having a foot or a wheel touchin’ ground. I never was intended to scoot round, bumpin’ the birds. So mebbe I’m prejudiced, when it comes to flyin’ machines. But that old motor—well, it’s an antique, all right, and it’s got trimmin’s I hain’t seen in years, and I reckon it’s a gasoline hog for keeps, but ’tis high speed, sure enough. Likely’s not ’twas made for some old-time racin’ car. And I will say Poke or Step, one of ’em, has got a knack with machinery; for they’ve got Methusaleh to workin’ so well that I wouldn’t trust myself behind him, if he was rigged in a road roller. But as for what they will do with the power they’re generatin’, and the schemes they’ve figgered out to twirl the propeller—say, that sort o’ stuff is all off my beat. I did give ’em a hint or two about changin’ wirin’, but there I stopped. And as for the name of the contraption—say, now, Sam! if those boys don’t scare the feathers off every hen in ten mile, I’m missin’ my guess. That motor’ll work fast enough, but it coughs like a million chokin’ dogs, and the way it misses fire now and then—whew! but it’s enough to make a man or a rooster jump out of his skin! But Poke says mufflers are barred on flyin’ machines, and so there you are! You’ve got to be in the fashion if you bust all the neighbors’ ear-drums.”
Sam, who had no confidence in Poke’s great experiment, next consulted the Shark, whom he found to be pessimistic, but guarded in statement.
“I haven’t got it worked out yet for Poke,” he said, “and until I finish the calculation, I’m not going to open my head, except to remark that I guess most flyers have to make a lot of tests and take some tumbles before they soar. Just now, though, I’m trying to find out just what will happen when a given propeller turns a given number of times in a second and there’s a given area of plane. I don’t know yet, but I’m going to know.”
Well as he knew the Shark and highly as he respected his mathematical talents, Sam was impressed.
“Geeminy! But that’s a stunt you’ve set yourself!”
“Certainly it is,” said the Shark calmly. “If it wasn’t one, I wouldn’t bother with it. I’d never dabbled in aeronautics, you know, and it’s more or less of a job to look up the formulæ. No; if it wasn’t for the sport of calculating——”
“Sport!” Sam interrupted, incredulously.
“Best ever!”
“Well, it’s all in the way you look at it. And—er—er—one man’s meat is another man’s poison.”