Ned wore a new straw hat, Alan had thrown off a cap, and Bob’s hat, on the table, was a felt, light and soft after the Western style. A fresh spot of oil on Ned’s light coat seemed to annoy him, probably because of the formal and spotless attire of their host. The main differences between the boys were in their faces. Russell had the imperturbable, frank—even bold stare of the typical reporter, which was only lost when he smiled. Napier’s, boyish and yet intense, wore at times the soft look of a dreamer or poet. Hope, always alert and quizzical, had not even smiled as yet. Alan’s character was well indicated by Ned’s frequent phrase: “the boy wonder who has to be shown.”
The managing editor’s examination of the three young men did not seem to make his coming explanation any easier. “They were just three boys,” he explained later to a friend, “but I knew in a moment they were not ‘kids’ mentally.” While Ned coolly smoothed his hair the editor finally began.
“I may as well be frank as a preliminary. The _Herald_ is in full possession of the facts concerning what has taken place this evening.” Not a boy batted an eye.
“If you don’t mind,” said Ned in the pause that followed, “would you be a little more explicit?”
“I mean that a _Herald_ reporter watched the _Ocean Flyer_ leave the Aeroplane Company’s yards to-night and saw it return twenty-five minutes later. We are advised that it traveled forty miles seaward and returned safely at a rate of one hundred and eighty miles an hour. We have reasonably full details of the construction of your new airship and, I believe, exact accounts of its unique features—the triple tandem planes, their automatic adjustment, the new ‘moon propellers’ and the enormous turbine sulphuric ether engines.”
There was a silence following this speech that was dramatic. As if schooled for such emergencies not one of the three boys looked at the other. When the silence was broken it was by Ned.
“As you say, your information is reasonably correct.”
“I assume,” continued the editor, “that you recognize that these facts make a good newspaper story, particularly when they are known to one paper alone.”
The first response to this came from Bob Russell, the reporter. But it was not spoken. Recrossing his legs, he thrust his hands deep in his coat pockets and gazed determinedly toward the ceiling.