"One of the rumours we have heard," he began, "concerns a supposed invasion by a huge fleet of German battle-planes of enormous dimensions--a new biplane type which is steered from the bridge like an ocean steamer. "It is supposed to be three or four times as large as their usual _Albatross_ type, with a vast cruising radius, immense capacity for lifting, and powerful enough to carry a great weight of armour, equipment, munitions, and a very large crew. "And the most disturbing thing about it is that it is said to be as noiseless as a high-class automobile." "Has such an one been seen in Brittany?" "Such a machine has been reported--many, many times--as though not one but hundreds were in Finistère. And, what is very disquieting to us--a report has arrived from a distant and totally independent source--from Sweden--that air-crafts of this general type have been secretly built in Germany by the hundreds." After a moment’s silence she stepped into the house; he followed. The great, bare, grey rooms were in keeping with the grey exterior; age had more than softened and coördinated the ancient furnishings, it had rendered them colourless, without accent, making the place empty and monotonous. Her chair and workbasket stood by a latticed window; she seated herself and took up her sewing, watching him where he stood before the fireplace fussing over a little mantel clock--a gilt and ebony affair of the consulate, shaped like a lyre, the pendulum being also the clock itself and containing the works, bell and dial. When he had adjusted it to his satisfaction he tested it. It still struck five. He continued to fuss over it for half an hour, testing it at intervals, but it always struck five times, and finally he gave up his attempts with a shrug of annoyance. "_I_ can’t do anything with it," he admitted, smiling cheerfully across the room at her; "is there another clock on this floor?" She directed him; he went into an adjoining room where, on the mantel, a modern enamelled clock was ticking busily. But after a little while he gave up his tinkering; he could do nothing with it; the bell persistently struck five. He returned to where she sat sewing, admitting failure with a perplexed and uneasy smile; and she rose and accompanied him through the house, where he tried, in turn, every one of the other clocks. When, at length, he realized that he could accomplish nothing by altering their striking mechanism--that every clock in the house persisted in striking five times no matter where the hands were pointing, a sudden, odd, and inward rage possessed him to hurl the clocks at the wall and stamp the last vestiges of mechanism out of them.