g that it would be a splendid idea to send the Wondership to
New York, and that from there we travel to Nestorville, _via_ the air
route."

"Great!" cried Tom, delighted. "But say, are we to take Masterson
along?"

"Of course not," replied Jack. "He can go back to Boston on the
train."

"Good for you!" declared Tom, slapping his chum on the back.

"But I haven't told you my main idea yet," said Jack, smiling,

"What is that?" asked the other wonderingly.

"Can't you guess?"

"No," Tom began to say, and then the roguish twinkle in Jack's eyes
gave him a sudden inspiration. "You don't mean to use the Z.2.X. to
send messages with while we fly nearer and nearer to our old home
town?"

"That is exactly what I wish to do," said Jack quietly.

"Whoop! It's great!" cried Tom, throwing his hat in the air; and as he
saw Dick coming toward them, he fairly pounced on the astonished
reporter with the news.

"Flamjam flapcakes of Florida!" gasped Dick.

And so it was arranged. A few days later our party boarded a train for
the East. Jack, Tom, Dick and Professor Jenks arrived at New York.

(They had left Zeb behind to attend to the work in the barren
fields.)

The Wondership, as on the previous occasion, was quietly but quickly
assembled, and made ready to take its homeward flight. They had chosen
a spot on Manhattan island still very meagerly developed, and so were
not at all troubled by curious onlookers. Jack, to whom his father had
explained in detail the use of Z.2.X.--or Coloradite, as they had
decided to call it--busied himself almost exclusively with the radio
telephone apparatus. When all was ready, he sent his father the
following telegram:

"Expect message, using Coloradite from New York."

The next morning they ascended. Round and round the Wondership
circled, a golden speck against the blue sky. In a quarter of an hour
the great metropolis seemed nothing but a giant beehive, with millions
of busy workers ever hurrying in hundreds of different directions. The
cars and automobiles were only like giant bees, moving somewhat
swifter than those on what looked like fine threads of cotton or wool.

"What a small place New York is after all," observed the professor.

"It is larger than Boston," said Tom slyly,

"Perhaps," admitted the man of science haughtily, "but not as learned
or stately--no city can take its culture away from Boston."

Jack smiled, and in order to change the conversation, asked Tom,