take them from one end of their
country to the other, my figure was vague enough, no doubt. Some
day, when I go back, I shall try to explain.

"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 naive 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
paean, 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 thousa