"Cut then!" acceded Sherbrand, and the telegraph-clerk touched his pen—discovering by a jab of the inky nib that he was wearing it—and set off at a trot in the direction of the engine-sheds.
You are to suppose that von Herrnung’s sharp ears had gathered the pith of the communication. Some meaning in the isolated words the clerk had repeated had had a palpable effect upon his nerves. His face looked bluish-grey and streaky, as he said to Sherbrand, stammering in his eagerness:
"So then, it is agreed about my flying your machine?"
"_Gut!_" Von Herrnung went on, concealing a huge joy under a careless camaraderie: "Can you lend me a cap and coat and a pair of _Schulzbrille_? Goggles you call them, yes! The coat should better to be a large one"—he stumbled in his English now through sheer excitement—"I am so much a bigger man than you!"
"Certainly. We keep Flying rigs in all manner of sizes. It’s in the way of business," Sherbrand said. Then his glance fell upon Davis, whose little black-avised countenance wore an expression of sulky resentment, and he uttered a slight exclamation. "I forgot, Davis! I really am very sorry!" He turned to von Herrnung and explained in a tone of finality that enraged the hearer: "This is Davis’s afternoon off. I cannot ask him to repeat the climb."
"It is hellishly annoying! But see! Listen, my fellow!" He addressed himself to little grimy Davis, unhelmeted and unbuttoned, leaning against the Bird’s flank with his hands in the pockets of his oily overalls, chewing a blade of grass; "You will go up with me if I tip you? A sovereign! Come then! The gold does it! You will go up with me, will you not, yes?"
Davis spat out grass and delivered himself:
"Not even for my young guv’nor—and a Bank of England finnup, do I do the soaring heagle hact again this blooming Wednesday."
Welsh Davis had come to London from a mountain farm in Merioneth, speaking nothing but his native Cymric, and had culled his Sassenach from Cockney lips. Von Herrnung bid another sovereign, and then two more, ineffectually.
"Naow!" Davis was rock. "I’ve done my day’s stunt an’ I’m nuffy. D’yer tumble? Nuffy! Yer knaows wot that means—if you’re a Flying Bloke!"
"Damn you, I will gif you ten pounds!" Von Herrnung’s face was wrung and streaked with passion. He breathed hard, and the brown leather satchel jumped and wobbled in his shaking hand.