lasgow, from London to Manchester, one hundred miles, two hundred
miles in England, and the like. Most had hedged a little with ambiguous
conditions, and now offered resistance; one or two paid at once, and
vehemently called attention to the fact; and Mr. Butteridge plunged into
litigation with the more recalcitrant, while at the same time sustaining
a vigorous agitation and canvass to induce the Government to purchase
his invention.

One fact, however, remained permanent throughout all the developments of
this affair behind Butteridge's preposterous love interest, his politics
and personality, and all his shouting and boasting, and that was that,
so far as the mass of people knew, he was in sole possession of the
secret of the practicable aeroplane in which, for all one could tell
to the contrary, the key of the future empire of the world resided. And
presently, to the great consternation of innumerable people, including
among others Mr. Bert Smallways, it became apparent that whatever
negotiations were in progress for the acquisition of this precious
secret by the British Government were in danger of falling through. The
London Daily Requiem first voiced the universal alarm, and published
an interview under the terrific caption of, "Mr. Butteridge Speaks his
Mind."

Therein the inventor--if he was an inventor--poured out his heart.

"I came from the end of the earth," he said, which rather seemed to
confirm the Cape Town story, "bringing me Motherland the secret that
would give her the empire of the world. And what do I get?" He paused.
"I am sniffed at by elderly mandarins!... And the woman I love is
treated like a leper!"

"I am an Imperial Englishman," he went on in a splendid outburst,
subsequently written into the interview by his own hand; "but there
there are limits to the human heart! There are younger nations--living
nations! Nations that do not snore and gurgle helplessly in paroxysms
of plethora upon beds of formality and red tape! There are nations that
will not fling away the empire of earth in order to slight an unknown
man and insult a noble woman whose boots they are not fitted to unlatch.
There are nations not blinded to Science, not given over hand and foot
to effete snobocracies and Degenerate Decadents. In short, mark my
words--THERE ARE OTHER NATIONS!"

This speech it was that particularly impressed Bert Smallways. "If them
Germans or them Americans get hold of this," he said impressively to