Mr. Lind. How do you do, Mr. Douglas?"

"Oh!" said Mr. Lind. "You two are acquainted. I did not know that."

"Yes," said Conolly, "I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Douglas at the
Academy yesterday evening."

"Indeed? Marian did not mention that you were there. Well, can we see
the wonders of the place, Mr. Conolly; or do we disturb you?"

"Not at all," replied Conolly, turning to one of the models, and
beginning his showman's lecture with disquieting promptitude. "Hitherto,
as you are no doubt aware, Mr. Douglas, steam has kept electricity, as a
motive power, out of the field; because it is much less expensive. Even
induced magnetic currents, the cheapest known form of electric energy,
can be obtained only by the use of steam power. You generate steam by
the combustion of coal: electricity, without steam, can only be
generated by the combustion of metals. Coal is much cheaper than metal:
consider the vast amount of coal consumed in smelting metals. Still,
electricity is a much greater force than steam: it's stronger, so to
speak. Sixpennorth of electricity would do more work than sixpennorth of
steam if only you could catch it and hold it without waste. Up to the
present the waste has been so enormous in electric engines as compared
with steam engines that steam has held its own in spite of its inferior
strength. What I have invented is, to put it shortly, an electric engine
in which there is hardly any waste; and we can now pump water, turn
mill-stones, draw railway trains, and lift elevators, at a saving, in
fuel and labor, of nearly seventy per cent, of the cost of steam. And,"
added Conolly, glancing at Douglas, "as a motor of six-horsepower can be
made to weigh less than thirty pounds, including fuel, flying is now
perfectly feasible."

"What!" said Douglas, incredulously. "Does not all trustworthy evidence
prove that flying is a dream?"

"So it did; because a combination of great power with little weight,
such as an eagle, for instance, possesses, could not formerly be
realized in a machine. The lightest known four-horse-power steam engine
weighs nearly fifty pounds. With my motor, a machine weighing thirty
pounds will give rather more than six-horse-power, or, in other words,
will produce a wing power competent to overcome much more than its own
gravity. If the Aeronautical Society does not, within the next few
years, make a machine capable of carrying passengers through the air to
New York in less than t