a-tory to your father, my dear"--pain
snatched at the man's breath--"or to his
invention, either. I knew him before you
did. 'Why did I do it?' Curiosity--eccentricity,
I suppose--anything you
like to call it! I always was such a
'terror'---a regular zany, my college
friends used to call me."

A flash from those prankful days, erratic
as a shooting star, shot the glaze' in the
sufferer's eye.

"And, then--and then, I really am
interested in everything connected with
the conquest of the air--of space--myself,"
the hampered speaker went on.
"I Ve done a little flying, out West,--my
son, too! I found out when the
experiments with your father's in-vention
-

"We call it the Thunder Bird," put
in Una, as pain again called for a break.

"Ha! Good name for it! Piles up
the moon-going romance, ch? Well-11,"
wearily, "having found out the par-ti-
[[272]]

p271 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p272w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p273

v?