The War in the Air

r Bert Smallways that this remar

Bun Hill and seen the fly-like mechanism, its rotating planes a golden haze in the sunset, sink humming to the harbour of its shed again, they turned back towards the sunken green-grocery beneath t

hat traversed the High Street, and in its nature it was contentious and private. The Grubb business was in difficulties, and Grubb in a moment of fi

all investor. It was coming home to Bert, as though it were an entirely new fact, that Tom was singularly impervious to ideas. In the end he put the financial

ements of cycles, a display of bells, trouser-clips, oil-cans, pump-clips, frame-cases, wallets, and other accessories, and the announcement of "Bicycles on Hire," "Repairs," "Free inflation," "Petrol," and similar attractions. They were agents for several obscure makes of bicycle,--two s

that was all they had. The saddle and handle-bar were then sketchily adjusted by Grubb, a deposit exacted, except in the case of familiar boys, the machine lubricated, and the adventurer started upon his career. Usually he or she came back, but at times, when the accident was serious, Bert or Grubb had to go out and fetch the machine home. Hire was always charged up to the hour of return to the shop and deducted from the deposit. It was rare that a bicycle started out from their hands in a state of pedantic efficiency. Romantic possibilities of accident lurked in the worn thread of the screw that adjusted the saddle, in the precarious pedals, in the loo

rian, Grubb would ignore all verbal comp

fair usage," h

pect a bicycle to take you up in its arms and carry you," he used

ance. They were big, coarse stokers from Gravesend. One was annoyed because his left pedal had come off, and the other because his tyre had become deflated, small and indeed negligible accidents by Bun Hill standards, due entirely to the ungentle handling of the delicate machines entrusted to them--and they failed to see clearly how they put themselves in the wrong by this method of argument. It is a poor way of convincing a man that he has let you a defective machine to throw his foot-pump a

bend in the road at the bottom of Bun Hill; and here they struggled along bravely, in spite of persistent annoyance from their former land

doubt their peculiar picturesqueness is to be ascribed. The old Bun Hill High Street drops at its end for perhaps eighty or a hundred feet of descent at an angle of one in five, turns at right angles to the left, runs in a curve for about thirty yards to a brick bridge over the dry ditch that had once been the Otterbourne, an

come to them first w

re a chap might get a living

living by keeping

spatch-cocked," said Grubb. "T

no place for a run unless they had it in the shop. It would have been obviously out of place there. The shop was much more mod

don't mind when that motor-car comes along. I don

with great artfulness, "I'

a by demanding a deaf retriever, and rejecting every candidate that pricked up its ears. "I

curiosity; they declared a

ey said, "dog

Well, a dog that isn't deaf doesn't like it--gets excited, smells round, barks, growls. That upsets the customer. See? Then a dog that has his hearing fancies things. Makes burglars out of

ed in the front wheel of a passing cyclist, who came through the plate glass, and proved to be an actor out of work and an undischarged bankrupt. He demanded compensation for some fancied injury, would hear nothing of the valuable dog he had killed or the windo

her--and a loud, bellowing, unreasonable person at that--served to remind them of their unsettled troubles with the old. Things were at this pitch when Bert bethought himself of creating a sort of debentu

lunge at their crumbling busin

m of hiring-trade on Sunday and devote that day to much-needed relaxation and refreshment--to have, in fact, an unstinted good time, a beano on Whit Sunday and return invigorated to grapple with their difficulties and the Bank Holiday repairs on the Monday. No good thing was ever done by exhausted and dispirited men. It happened that th

lly, in the sample held for sale. Miss Bunthorne, whom Bert particularly affected, could not ride, and so

beside him with one skilful hand and Bert teuf-teuffing steadily, was to realise how pluck may triumph even over insolvency.

they

fashioned four-wheeled traffic. Bank Holiday times always bring out old stored-away vehicles and odd people; one saw tricars and electric broughams and dilapidated old racing motors with huge pneumatic tyres. Once our holiday-makers saw a horse and cart, and once a youth riding a black horse amidst the badinage of the passersby. And th

to matter to Mr

aper placard

RM

THE MONROE

ATTITUDE

BRITAIN DO

h a pretty girl trailing behind one, and envious cyclists trying to race you. Nor did our young people attach any great importance to the flitting suggestions of military activity they glimpsed ever and again. Near Maidstone they came on a string of elev

up?" s

oeuvres,"

them at Easter," said Ed

as over and forgotten, and the public had l

y high road might have been no more than the horns of elf-land. They laughed and gossiped and picked flowers and made love and talked, and the girls smoked cigarettes. Also they scuffled playfully. Among other things they talked aeronautics, and how thev would come for a picnic together in Bert's flying-machine before ten ye

Bert's horn, and the result was a curious, amusing, wheezing sound had got into his "honk, honk." For the sake of merriment and glory he was making this sound as much as possible, and Edna was in fits of laughter in the trailer. They made a sort of rushing cheerfulness along the road that affected their fellow travel

she sc

herself involved with his leg as he dismounted. She got to the si

" sai

go, and that he ought to have done so--a good idea in its way, but not immediately helpful. He turned upon Edna sharply. "Get a lot of wet sand," he said. Then he wheeled the machine a little towards the side of the roadway, and laid it down and loo

e in the road-grit. Whereupon Bert and Edna also scrabbled in the road-grit. Other cyclists arrived, dismounted and stood about, and their flame-lit faces expressed satisfaction, interest, cur

. "Don't throw water on it!" he said--"don't throw water on it!" He displayed commanding presence of mind

it!" they cried. Als

t, you fool

, and others, fired by his enthusiasm, imitated his action. Bert caught up a trailer-cushion and began to beat; there was another cushion and a table-cloth, and these also were seized. A young hero pulled off his jacket and join

goggled, grey-haired man who was driving inquired with an Oxford

ting smeared with petrol and burning. The soul seemed to go out of the cushion Bert

ng thing, close to the ground and wicked; it gave a leap of anguish at every whack of the beaters. But now Grubb had gone off to stamp out the burning bl

sprang at the flames with a shout. He stamped into the ruin until flames ran u

Bert thought of the papers in his pockets, and staggered back, tr

ectator in a silk hat and Sabbatical garments. "Oh!" she crie

The tarpau

had suddenly appeared at the side of the lame motor-car

lemanly man. "Yes. W

t-looking man, suddenly shou

ry gestures, and in the manner of a hypnotised

rnest-looking man to

d upon the Oxford gentleman's tarpaulin. The others stood away with approving noises. The

e done this befo

paulin, bulged up in the centre, seemed to be suppressing triumphant exultation. Then its self-approval became too much for it; it burst into a bright red smile in the centre. It was

into an outer circle of critics, advisers, and secondary characters, who had played undistinguished parts or no parts at all in the affair, and a central group of heated and distressed principals. A young man with an inquiring mind and a considerable knowledge of motor-bicycles fixed on to Grubb and wanted to

and then remarked, in a tone of rapturous enjo

so. The front wheel had retained its tyre, was intact, was still rotating slowly among the blackened and twisted ruins of the rest of the machine. It had something of that air of conscious virtue

constantly losing people; they would mount their various wheels with the satisfied manner of spectators who have had the best.

leman of the motor-car, "my

the owner was the

id the gentleman of the motor-car,

e by ten they lock her out. See? Well, all my money was in my jacket pocket, and it's all

he said, "if you'll come with us. We're late for dinner as it is, so it won't make much difference for us t

ert going to

rt," said the motor-car gentleman, "thou

id Bert, waving his hand at the debos

't," said the Oxford man.

a bit," said Bert. "I got to see t

e leavin'

t 'elp it

musing deeply by the mixed ironwork and ashes of his vanished motor-bicycle, a melancholy figure. His retinue

ied Edna, with artificia

Edna," s

ou to-

destined, as a matter of fact, to see much o

d boxful, and search for a half-crown that

s grave and

pened," said Flossie, r

Now, in the darkening night, he perceived the vanity of such intentions. Truth came to him bleakly, and laid her chill conviction upon him. He took hold of the handle-bar, stood the thing up, tried to push it forward. The tyreless hind-wheel was jammed hop

ot once

r Bert Smallways for a year or two. Good-bye 'olidays!... Oh! I ough

profound despondency. It seemed a small matter to them that the new

- REPORTED AMER

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O-RAIL DI

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--- WAR A QUE

YORK

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-- WASHINGTON

ILL PA

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EN PARTY TO THE

IDGE TAKES

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---- WILL A

AN RIOT I

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ded-up shop was dark and depressing beyond words, the few scandalous hiring machines had never looked so hopelessly disreputable. He thought of their fellows who were "out," and of the approachin

stilling the quintessence, "

," said

I don't seem to care ever t

ailer," said Gru

Anyhow, I didn't leave a deposit

"we aren't gettin' on here. We been losing money ha

we do?"

ch, and quit. See? It's no good 'anging on to a l

-"that's all right; but it ain'

after our capital," said

sponsible for that trailer,

to stick on here, well and good. I'm quitting. I'll

vin'

u. If you m

d new beginnings and stock and the prospect of credit. Now--now it was failure and dust. Very likely the landlord

thought it out as I was walking 'ome,

d you th

la

t pl

e for stic

hing better

an ideer,

s laugh yestiday,

time ago now

rly cried--over t

d Grubb; "I saw it. But what's

d," sa

Ow

t you

ing in th

a chap singing on the beach yet that I couldn't 'ave sung into a cocked hat. And we both know how to put on the toff a bit. Eh? Well, that's my ideer. Me and you, Grubb, with a refined song and a breakdo

Class; and then it seemed to him that afar off he heard the twankle, twankle of a banjo, and the voice of a stranded siren singing. He had a sense of hot sunshine upon sand, of the children of at least transiently opulent holi

ert, and, "Now we

f these machines up to the Bicycle Mart in Finsbury we'd raise six or seven po

ng round to make his usual row with us, a

'll put up another notice, and jest arst all inquirers to go

with a lot of gold lace and cord and ornamentation, rather like a naval officer's, but more so. But that had to be abandoned as impracticable, it would have taken too much time and money to prepare. They perceived they must wear some cheaper and more readily prepared costume, and Grubb fell back on white do

nise us, who'd know them bicycles again like a shot, and we d

aid Grubb

cut all these rotten old worr

nd cheap unbleached sheets with a hole cut in the middle, and wigs and beards of tow. The rest their normal selves! "The Desert Dervish

they gained confidence, attack larger centres. To begin with they s

ed the governments of half the world and more were drifting into war. About midday they b

THE WAR-CL

else b

' about war no

real earnest one of these days,

t of England to be reached by the mono-rail, and so its spacious sands were still, at the time of this story, the secret and delight of quite a limited number of people. Th

lestone, grew nearer and larger and more audible, honk-honking and emitting weird cries, and general

to line, dismounted and stood it attention. "Ladies and gentlemen," they sai

an undertone, and the Desert Dervishes plied their bicycles with comic "business," that got a laugh from one very unsophisticated little boy. Then they took a deep breath and struck into the cheerful strain o

ing-a-ling-a-tin

ce Hair-

and the children drew near these foolish young men, marvelling that they

ent to and fro; the common abundant life of the time, unsuspicious of all dangers that gathered darkly against it, flowed on its cheerful aimless wa

, golden-brown balloon low in the sky to the north-west, and coming rapidly towards them. "Je

ting-a-ling-a-t

ce Hair-

thank goodness," said Grubb--re-appeared with a leap.

dance, and then st

wrong with that b

trying to land; it would approach, sinking slowly, touch the ground, and instantly jump fifty feet or so in the air and immediately begin to fall again. Its car touched a clump of trees, and the black figure that had been struggling in the ropes fell back, or jumped back, into the car. In another moment it was quit

d Grubb, and started

about the same time, and began to dance over it in their attempts to secure it. Bert came up to this wriggling, elusive serpent and got his foot on it, went down on all fours and achieved a grip. In half a dozen seconds the whole

ard. It dropped, touched the water, and made a flat, silvery splash, and recoiled as one's finge

ver imagined before what a big, light, wallowing thing a balloon was. The car was of brown coarse wicker-work, and comparatively small. The rope he tugged at was fastened to a stout-looking ring, four or five feet above the car.

nose, a huge black moustache. He had discarded coat and waistcoat--perhaps with some idea of presently having to swim for his life--and his black hair was extraordinarily disordered. "Will all you people get hold round the car?" he said. "There's a lady here fainted--or got failure of the heart. Heav

id, in a note of earnest expostulation: "Get some brandy

lady, wearing a fur coat and a big floriferous hat. Her head lolled back against the padded corner of the car,

ave n

dge, in a greatly intensifi

ill quite

bellow--"if she is dead, I will r-r-rend the heavens like a garment! I must get her out," he cried, his nostrils dilated with emotion--"I must get her out. I cannot have

ep the car from jumping," he said to those who clustered about him. "Keep your wei

on on the edge of the car. The others to

dy?" said Mr

ker edge opposite to Bert, and put one leg over to dangle outside. A rope or so seemed

rim, that she came-to. She came-to suddenly and violently with a loud, heart-rending cry of

over the side of the car. His impressions were complex, but they also comprehended the fact that he had lost his balance, and was going to stand on his head inside this creaking basket. He spread out clutching arms.

nd it!"

s ears, and because all the voices of the people about him had bec

arded when that gentleman had thought he must needs plunge into the sea. Bert bawled out half angry, half rueful, "Y

wd of people he had so abruptly left. Grubb, in the white wrapper of a Desert Dervish, was running along the edge of the sea. Mr. Butteridge was knee-deep in the water, bawling immensely. The lady was sitting up with her floriferous hat in her lap, shockingly neglected. The beach,

l survey of the cords and ropes about him with a vague idea of "doing something." "I'm not going to mess about with the

nd harbours and rivers and ribbon-like roads, at ships and ships, decks and foreshortened funnels upon the ever-widening sea, and at the great mono-rail bridge that straddled the Channel from Folkeston