ances, so between the
whiffs of their cigars they chatted carelessly about anything and
everything but the object upon which their thoughts were just then
centred.

But the baronet's equanimity was for a moment upset when the professor,
after a perhaps unnecessarily prolonged fumbling with the key, threw
open the wicket which gave admission to the interior of the shed, and,
stepping back to allow his companions to precede him, exclaimed in tones
of exultant pride, in that broken English of his which it is unnecessary
to further reproduce:

"Behold, gentlemen, the embodiment of a scientist's dream--the _Flying
Fish_!"

The baronet advanced a pace or two, then stopped short, aghast.

"Good heavens!" he ejaculated. "What, in the name of madness, have you
done, professor? That huge object will _never_ float in the air; and I
should say it will be a pretty expensive business to get her into the
_water_, if indeed it is worth while to put her there."

The other two, the representatives of the army and of the navy, though
probably as much astonished as the baronet, said nothing. They knew
considerably more than the latter about the capabilities of science; and
though they might possibly entertain grave doubts as to the success of
the professor's experiment, they did not feel called upon to express an
off-hand opinion that it would prove a failure.

The baronet might well be excused his hasty expression of incredulity.
Towering above and in front of him, filling up the entire space of the
enormous shed from end to end and from ground to roof-timbers, he saw an
immense cylinder, pointed at both ends, and constructed entirely of the
polished silver-like metal which the professor had called aethereum.
The sides of the ship from stem to stern formed a series of faultless
curves; the conical bow or fore body of the ship being somewhat longer,
and therefore sharper, than the after body, which partook more of the
form of an ellipse than of a cone; the curvilinear hull was supported
steadily in position by two deep broad bilge-keels, one on either side
and about one-third the extreme length of the ship; and, attached to the
stern of the vessel by an ingeniously devised ball-and-socket joint in
such a manner as to render a rudder unnecessary, was to be seen a huge
propeller having four tremendously broad sickle-shaped blades, the palms
of which were hollowed in such a manner as to gather in and concentrate
the air, or water, a