ye shut yeer face whilst A'm dictatin'?"

"Sorry," murmured the corporal and poised his pencil.

"Suddenly, as the wee hero was guidin' his 'bus through the maze o'
cloods, a strange sicht met his ees. It was the caircus of
MacBissing! They were evolutin' by numbers, performin' their Great
Feat of Balancin' an' Barebacked Ridin', Aerial Trapeze an'
Tight-rope Walkin', Loopin' the Loop by the death-defyin' Brothers
Fritz, together with many laughable an' amusin' interludes by
Whimsical Walker, the Laird o' Laughter, the whole concludin' with
a Graund Patriotic Procession entitled Deutschland ower All--or
Nearly All."

"I ain't seen a circus for years," said the corporal with a sigh. "Lord!
I used to love them girls in short skirts--"

"Restrain yeer amorous thochts, Alec," warned Tam, "an' fix yeer mind on
leeterature. To proceed:

"'Can it be,' says our hero, 'can it be that Mr. MacBissing is
doin' his stunts at ten-thairty o' the clock in the cauld morn, for
sheer love o' his seenister profession? No,' says A'--says our
young hero--'no,' says he, 'he has a distinguished audience as like
as not.'

"Speerin' ower the side an' fixin' his expensive glasses on the
groon, he espied sax motor-cars--"

The door was flung open and Blackie came in hurriedly. "Tam--get up," he
said briefly. "All the damn circuses are out on a strafe--and we're
It--von Bissing, von Rheinhoff, and von Wentzl. They're coming straight
here and I think they're out for blood."

The history of that great aerial combat has been graphically told by the
special correspondents. Von Bissing's formation--dead out of luck that
day--was broken up by Archie fire and forced back, von Wentzl was
engaged by the Fifty-ninth Squadron (providentially up in strength for a
strafe of their own) and turned back, but the von Rheinhoff group
reached its objective before the machines were more than five thousand
feet from the ground and there was some wild bombing.

Von Rheinhoff might have unloaded his bombs and got away, but he showed
deplorable judgment. To insure an absolutely successful outcome to the
attack he ordered his machines to descend. Before he could recover
altitude the swift little scouts were up and into the formation. The air
crackled with the sound of Lewis-gun fire, machines reeled and staggered
like drunken men, Tam's fighting Morane dipped and dived, climbed and
s