n were in their places, Schwab limped up.

"Permit me to shake hands viz ze first circumnavigator of ze sky," he
said with effusion, "and to remind you zat my firma Schlagintwert vill
be most happy to supply you viz anyzink vatefer zat you need, and in
vatefer region of ze globe you may be, on receipt of postcard,
telegram, cable, or Marconigram. Hoch!"

His cheer was taken up by the crowd. The machine moved forward. Herr
Schwankmacher, stepping back, fell into the arms of a grinning stoker,
and a little native boy, shrieking with fright, ran head-first into
the corpulent frame of a merchant who was more stable in his copra
business than in his legs. The aeroplane flew up; the crowd watched
its ascension like adoring worshippers of some sky deity; and in three
minutes it was a mere speck in the cloudless blue.

CHAPTER XVI

A STOP-PRESS MESSAGE

Mr. John McMurtrie, editor of the _Toronto Sphere_, a capable
journalist and a man of many friends, strolled into his office about
three o'clock one Wednesday afternoon. His first extra edition was due
at four, and it may seem that he had allowed himself a very short time
for dealing with fresh items of news that had come to hand since noon;
but he had an excellent assistant, who took a real interest in his
work, so that there was no need for the editor to hurry his luncheon
or the ensuing cigar.

"Well, Daniels," he said genially, as he entered his assistant's room.
He sat across a corner of the table, exhibiting a well-developed calf
neatly covered with golfing hose. "Is there anything fresh and frothy
on the tape?"

"Not much. A wire from 'Frisco about those flying men."

"You don't say so?"

"Here it is."

He handed the slip to his chief, who ran his eye over the message. The
words employed were few, but a journalist of McMurtrie's experience
instinctively covered the bare bones with a respectable integument,
and clothed this with a quite picturesque raiment by force of the more
ornamental parts of speech.

The substance of what he read was as follows: A cable message had
reached San Francisco from Honolulu in the afternoon of the previous
day, announcing that an aeroplane had alighted there about three
o'clock that morning, the owner, a Lieutenant Thistleton (so it was
corrupted) Smith declaring that he had come from Samoa in sixteen
hours, and was proceeding to San Francisco. He had left three hours
later, having waited only to take in a stock of pet