branches for the airship. Bert had
dropped some of his corned beef, but he found the biscuits in his hand
and ate them quietly. The monster came nearly overhead and then went
away to Niagara and dropped beyond the power-works. When it was near,
they all kept silence, and then presently they fell into an argument
that was robbed perhaps of immediate explosive effect only by their
failure to understand one another.

It was Bert began the talking and he talked on regardless of what they
understood or failed to understand. But his voice must have conveyed his
cantankerous intentions.

"You want that machine done," he said first, "you better keep your 'ands
off me!"

They disregarded that and he repeated it.

Then he expanded his idea and the spirit of speech took hold of him.
"You think you got 'old of a chap you can kick and 'it like you do your
private soldiers--you're jolly well mistaken. See? I've 'ad about enough
of you and your antics. I been thinking you over, you and your war and
your Empire and all the rot of it. Rot it is! It's you Germans made all
the trouble in Europe first and last. And all for nothin'. Jest silly
prancing! Jest because you've got the uniforms and flags! 'Ere I was--I
didn't want to 'ave anything to do with you. I jest didn't care a 'eng
at all about you. Then you get 'old of me--steal me practically--and
'ere I am, thousands of miles away from 'ome and everything, and all
your silly fleet smashed up to rags. And you want to go on prancin' NOW!
Not if 'I know it!

"Look at the mischief you done! Look at the way you smashed up New
York--the people you killed, the stuff you wasted. Can't you learn?"

"Dummer Kerl!" said the bird-faced man suddenly in a tone of
concentrated malignancy, glaring under his bandages. "Esel!"

"That's German for silly ass!--I know. But who's the silly ass--'im
or me? When I was a kid, I used to read penny dreadfuls about 'avin
adventures and bein' a great c'mander and all that rot. I stowed it. But
what's 'e got in 'is head? Rot about Napoleon, rot about Alexander, rot
about 'is blessed family and 'im and Gord and David and all that. Any
one who wasn't a dressed-up silly fool of a Prince could 'ave told all
this was goin' to 'appen. There was us in Europe all at sixes and sevens
with our silly flags and our silly newspapers raggin' us up against each
other and keepin' us apart, and there was China, solid as a cheese, with
millions and millions of men only want