The Highflyers

may well believe the history of the world would be other and better than it is. Potter Waite was injured early in May. Three months passed before he was able to take the air even in a slowly driven

t Potter Waite, but the time in which he lived, the world turmoil which surrounded him, the pressure of great events on his own life, compelled him

e have been regarded as monomaniacs, cranks. They have been derided. The world has whispered about them behind its hands and snick

s, for he was a practical business man, and when he could not see how a profit co

Man Jeffords. I sit in directors' meeting at the bank with him once a week, and he'll butt into any sort of a discussion with idiocy about some new postage stamp he's found in somebody's attic. I suppose people must have fa

making money out of

o much golf, or too much bridge, or too much anything that inter

anes are my

a long time, and you've gotten this n

ad. You're interested in one thing and I'm inte

I think you and I are better f

said

ng cub who would never do anything but squander what I made-and, by Jove! I was going to fix things so you couldn't! But you're not. You've got the stuff in you to take my place and carry on

, Dad. I guess it

id. "I suppose boys at your age are bound to have enthusiasms, but there's just one kin

the world quiets down. I'll work there as hard as you want me to, but first I've got to do this th

ural

uldn't be a fire. You don't expect a fire

tain

be dragged into it. That's a fire we've got to insure against. And I'm going into one line of the insurance business-the aeroplane line. If the fire comes we've

balde

o be. He thought he understood his position and his reason for assuming it so clearly-that they were so clear no one

nd of two years I'll come into the business and do whatever you want me to-but for two years let me go ahead with this thing and don't interfere with me.... I'll need some money, too. I've got to e

of a man compelled against his will. "Two years it is, and then you quit

, blinking man of monstrous girth who had brought Potter into the world

hould eat, and drunk as they intended you should drink. You're going to be well-as well as ever. There won't be a limp, probably. I can guarantee that there isn't a drop of alcohol about you. You're goi

ls," he said. "I'm afraid I sha'n't have time for them

er feel a

"I never did when I h

ou anything el

p. It was a treatise on carbureti

g about that," said the do

e.... It can have me. If we get into this war, Doctor, we're going to need twenty thousand aeroplanes-quick. I've a knack that way. By the time this country needs the 'planes I'm going to know m

ule you out of it. Do you know that the greatest automobile manufacturer in the world was once called Crazy Henry by his friends? You don't hear anybody calling him Crazy Henry now, do you?... And remember this: There'll alway

y there would be a girl sometime; there never had been girls who ranked higher than episodes. He had never seen a girl he wanted as a man should want the girl who is to be his wife. Marriage had been a

He recalled her as he had seen her that morning when she alighted from her machine at the

ble thread. He would not think of her as he thought of other women, nor she of him. Always the one would be to the ot

es of the great marsh.... And yet the island and marsh had not existed. They had fallen on the mainland miles from any such island! The 'plane had been found against a tree miles away from it. There had been a man.... Potter was certain he remembered a man, and that

ow with friends on the Maine coast. Potter's mother had told him this and had told him, too, of the raging call Herman von Essen had made on Fabius Waite, of the

wanted to

a letter. It was from her, the firs

ed me away. You don't know how glad I was to know that you are going to be all right again. Somehow I felt to blame." How abruptly, jerkily she wrote, changing from one subject to another without warning. It was like her, he thought. "I don't know when I shall be home, but I'm making myself as disagreeable as possible. I don't think they'll be able to stand me much longer. Then I'll come to see you. It was

amp her enthusiasm, and fear seemed to have no place in her vocabulary. She was the most utterly dari

. Cantor to see you,

r the name Cantor, recollecting it was the chap he had met

e his memory itch. He had seen Cantor somewhere, but where? What was there about the man? He noticed that Cantor

a fellow that was all fitted to a coffin. We were taking up a su

ing his hand. "You're maki

e remarked. "Shouldn't be surpri

ally to a business man," said Cantor. "

said Potter, but in his mind he was saying over and over: "

ent some letters I have from friends o

ver the notes. "They seem to be rather strong for you. I'm not very

have you chaperoning him through your plant. He's a regu

facturing efficiency," said Cantor. "

othe, with a laugh. "I'll bet he could draw from

or s

el. He said they'd put armed guards all around the plant. Found explosives in the coal, and now they're sorting over every c

oped last week in the Delmont Machine Company's shops

news?" as

ell. Looks as if Russia was

ond year," said Cantor. "Who

of our own one of these days. Mexico's i

year," Potter said.

he couldn't be be

sort of thing Germany stands for to-day has g

talk about anything else? When does the sawbones tel

eek or

Welcome you back and all that. The

to work," P

d La Mothe. "At w

p-all the fellows who are in the automobile game. I've laid around for three months with nothing to do but

?" said

nes," sa

l the aeroplane that was co

seemed to be surprised that the war had lasted a year, Mr. Cantor. My idea is

Cantor's close scrutiny, and of an expression

grabbing the world," Potter said. "If s

any of our action. Look how she ba

ny's hands were free she could land an army on our coast, and before we could start to get ready to fig

ay, Po

ll be sudden, and we'll be caught. We won't have an army, we won't have equipment-and we won't have aeroplanes, which will be harder

uch, Potter. You've been sick, t

nk about it, anyhow, will you, Fred

e wiggling on. We're exciting the invalid.

he said, "I'm going to bother you. You interest me-about the aeropl

arkened. He fixed them on Cantor and said, suddenly, "You weren't fishin

e?" Little points of white appeared at t

ss you got mixed up

ueer," said C

aid Potter. "Come again, fell