"An' did ye get every thin' done right?" Rebecca asked.
"I guess I did," he said, emphatically. "I don't want to take no two bites out o' that kind o' cherry."
He rose and proceeded to remove his fur coverings.
He proceeded to the engine-room, followed by Phoebe, who watched his actions with the greatest interest.
"What you doin' with that handle?" she asked.
"That sets the airyplane on the uptilt. I'm only settin' it a mite--jest 'nough to keep the machine from sinkin' down when we get to movin'."
"Just let out a mite o' gas below," said Droop. He suited the action to the word, and, with a tremendous hissing beneath it, the vessel rose slowly.
Droop pulled the starting lever and they moved forward with increasing speed. When they had gathered way, he shut off the gas escape and carefully readjusted the aeroplanes until the machine as a whole moved horizontally.
There was felt a slight jerk as they reached the end of the rope, and then they began to move in a circle from east to west.
"Just five minutes past eight," she said.
The sun was pouring its beams into the right-hand windows when they started, but the shafts of light now began to sweep circularly across the floor, and in a few moments, as they faced the sun, it ceased to shine in from the right. Immediately afterward it shone in at the left-hand windows and circled slowly around until again they were in shadow with the sun behind them.
Droop took out his watch and timed their revolutions by the sun's progress from window to window.
"'Bout one to the minute," he remarked. "Guess I'll speed her up a mite."
Carefully he regulated the speed, timing their revolutions accurately.
"There!" he said at length. "I guess that's pretty nigh two to the minute. D'ye feel any side weight?" he said, addressing his companions.
"You manage right well, Mr. Droop," she said. "You must have practised a good deal."
"Oh, not much," he replied, greatly pleased. "The future man showed me how to work it three--four times. It's simple 'nough when ye understand the principles."
These remarks brought a new idea to Rebecca's mind.
"Why, Mr. Droop," she exclaimed, "whatever's the use o' you goin' back to 1876! Why don't ye jest set up as the inventor o' this machine? I'm sure thet ought to make yer everlastin' fortune!"