Air Wonder Stories, July 1929 — page 20: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

18 AIR WONDER STORIES I pulled back the cut-out lever—and the air suddenly was hideous with noise. I opened the throttle carefully. Breathless, we watched the speed dial. The pointer travelled in tiny jerks up the scale: three- eighty-five—six, seven, eight, nine—three-ninety! Gradually, steadily, and the roar of the engine now a screaming, rising note, the pointer crawled round the dial, A quick look at Milliken, who was sitting in the toggled seat behind me, showed me his ugly old mug streaming with perspiration. His gaze was fixed on the speed dial, and his ips were moving. For myself, my jaws were clenched enough to hurt. Round, round went the pointer: Four-eighty-five— six, seven—back to six—seven, eight—eight—a little more throttle—nine, nine—four-ninety | Creep- ing, jerking, the pointer travelled—five hundred! That was the extent of the dial. I had a curious fear that to open the throttle any more would be to burst something. The dial said five hundred, and that was the limit of endurance. I couldn’t stand any more and I throttled down. The pointer went back quickly—and I whipped in the cut-out. Milliken saw the movement, and his lips went quicker. But I could not hear him. My ears were still filled with the roar. The silence was appalling. I tried to speak, but could not hear myself. Then, gradually the sound of a voice came to me as from a great distance. “Hell —I knew she would! Heaven!—I knew she would!” it came, “By the holy old keeno, Methu- selah, there’s nothing to touch her. She’s a daisy and a duck! Why’n hell can’t they make six-hun- dred dials? You peach—oh, you little bird! Oh, boy!” It was Milliken, the normally silent, unpacking his heart of words! Eighteen minutes after leaving Gardiner Bay we were tying up at the Battery seaplane jetty, I had to shake Milliken to make him realize we were there. “Wake up, Milliken! We're there!” “Yes, yes. 1 know.” He cast a look of scorn at the fleet of machines round the jetty. “Look at them!” he cried. “Just you look at the pack of baby carriages! Oh, you bird!” he apostrophized the Merlin. “Bird be damned!” said I. on land or sea that’s like her!” “Take her back, Milliken,” I told him, “before the rubbernecks get to prying—but don’t for the life of you let her touch more than three-fifty at the very most. Go over her carefully. She may have strained something.” I watched him take her out, and followed her until she was lost in the clouds. Then I turned and walked up to Broadway. It may be imagined that I was in high feather, for the Merlin had made the latest speed record look silly by an extra eighty kilometres an hour, and I knew very well that she had not been anything like full out. Given that amazing speed, her power of quick and easy descent, her manoeuverability, and her quick climb, I had every reason to think my machine was a world- beater. A feeling of great exhilaration possessed me as I walked up Broadway, My mind worked at amazing “There isn’t a thing speed, and I found myself gathering impressions of the things around me quicker than I had ever picked them up before. The traffic appeared to crawl, and although I was whacking along as quick- ly as my legs would let me, I seemed to be travel- ling at a snail’s pace. It was an uncanny feeling, I may tell you. Five Calculations MM: father, when I got to him, had an astonishing piece of news. “The stolen securities have been found!” he said right away. _ “What! Where?” “Tn the Post Office. The lot of them, from all five banks, in envelopes addressed to various hos- pitals and institutions——" “Good heavens?” I yelled. “Then that ass Glover was right!” “What's that?” my father asked in a bewildered sort of way. “Glover? Who’s Glover?” I told him of the interview with the Post Office official. “Tt’s a mighty queer affair, Jimmy,” he said, “and a mighty queer gang of crooks. They got away with a couple of million in securities—all of which have been recovered at the Post Office. In gold they've got away with about two and a _ half million i “Tf you get the scrip back, what’s your total Joss?” “Two htindred and fifty-three thousand odd dol- lars in gold. It’s a tidy sum, but in itself could not affect a bank like ours seriously. The danger is in the rumours that all our gold was taken and in the loss of public confidence. There might be a scare, and a run on the banks.” “No sign of that yet?” “Not so far, but the news hasn't got into the country yet,” said my father, “There’s something of a panic in Wall Street already. The markets have all gone bluey.” “T hope you're wrong in your prophecy, dad.” “I hope I am,” he said calmly. “But the cheap press is working up a fine seare. A lot of harm will be done if they keep on with it. You'd think the facts amazing enough without distortion, but some of these newspaper fellows have let their imaginations run riot.” A new point came to my mind. “Two and a half million in gold, dad,” I asked him, “what would that weigh?” “Eh, what’s that? Let me see now.” He figured for a minute on a sheet of paper. “Over three tons, I make it.’ “Bother your old scale of weights,” I laughed. _ “What's that in kilos?” * “You'd better figure it for yourself,” the old man said grumpily. “I’ve just worked the thing out from ounces troy to avoirdupois.”’ “My word,” said I preséntly. “That's over three thousand kilos—three, nought, four, eight—to be exact. Say a man can heft twenty-five kilos at a time. That makes a hundred and twenty-two journeys to remove the stuff.” “Trying to work out the composition of the gang?” “That's the notion. How long would you say it would take a man to carry twenty-five kilos from *Tho U, &, A. adopted the metric system for weights, etc., in 1930. comnlicloooks.com