his brother, "the British Empire's done. It's U-P. The Union Jack, so to
speak, won't be worth the paper it's written on, Tom."

"I suppose you couldn't lend us a hand this morning," said Jessica,
in his impressive pause. "Everybody in Bun Hill seems wanting early
potatoes at once. Tom can't carry half of them."

"We're living on a volcano," said Bert, disregarding the suggestion. "At
any moment war may come--such a war!"

He shook his head portentously.

"You'd better take this lot first, Tom," said Jessica. She turned
briskly on Bert. "Can you spare us a morning?" she asked.

"I dessay I can," said Bert. "The shop's very quiet s'morning. Though
all this danger to the Empire worries me something frightful."

"Work'll take it off your mind," said Jessica.

And presently he too was going out into a world of change and wonder,
bowed beneath a load of potatoes and patriotic insecurity, that merged
at last into a very definite irritation at the weight and want of style
of the potatoes and a very clear conception of the entire detestableness
of Jessica.

CHAPTER II. HOW BERT SMALLWAYS GOT INTO DIFFICULTIES

It did not occur to either Tom or Bert Smallways that this remarkable
aerial performance of Mr. Butteridge was likely to affect either of
their lives in any special manner, that it would in any way single them
out from the millions about them; and when they had witnessed it from
the crest of Bun Hill and seen the fly-like mechanism, its rotating
planes a golden haze in the sunset, sink humming to the harbour of its
shed again, they turned back towards the sunken green-grocery beneath
the great iron standard of the London to Brighton mono-rail, and their
minds reverted to the discussion that had engaged them before Mr.
Butteridge's triumph had come in sight out of the London haze.

It was a difficult and unsuccessful discussions. They had to carry it
on in shouts because of the moaning and roaring of the gyroscopic
motor-cars that traversed the High Street, and in its nature it was
contentious and private. The Grubb business was in difficulties, and
Grubb in a moment of financial eloquence had given a half-share in it
to Bert, whose relations with his employer had been for some time
unsalaried and pallish and informal.

Bert was trying to impress Tom with the idea that the reconstructed
Grubb & Smallways offered unprecedented and unparalleled opportunities
to the judicious small investor. It was coming hom