"In the first place," objected Uncle Brian, "you won't be allowed up alone. There will be always six or eight of the crew. They won't prevent us from carrying out our proposed experiments, but they'd very soon stick a knife between your ribs if you attempted to fly across the frontier. In the second place, if you attempted to start at night without a crew there's always a strong guard posted over the hangars. No doubt we'll find a way out when the time comes, but until then keep your eyes open and don't look too wise!" "There's another point, Uncle." "And that is----?" "That greaser Ramon Diaz: what was his object in trying to prove that Jutland was a Hun victory?" "I think simply because he wanted to see how you'd take it. Out here they think it is a great stunt to be able to rile an Englishman. According to their ideas Great Britain is fast crumbling. They'll never make a bigger mistake. Perhaps some of the newspapers are responsible for that. The Rioguayans cannot understand our form of government. To them it is an absurdity to appoint a Prime Minister and then begin to howl him down. Out here there is no Opposition, or if there is, it does not advertise. People in Rioguay who ostentatiously differ from the President and the Senate are forcibly and finally removed." "Well, Uncle, I thought Diaz was a pal of yours, and naturally I didn't want to start scrapping with him in your house, but I should have liked to give him a straight left." "It's as well you didn't," remarked Brian Strong drily, "although I quite sympathize with you in your desire to alter the features of Ramon's figurehead. Keeping your temper under control puzzles these Rioguayans far more than if you had hit out. You'll have plenty of provocation, Peter, especially later on when they think I've guessed the secret of the flying-boat's true colours. Our policy just at present is to carry on, eat humble-pie if needs be, and to prepare a line of retreat as soon as my anti-aircraft device is tested and perfected." Breakfast over, Brian suggested to his nephew that he should take a stroll round the flying ground until _siesta_. "I'll have to be fairly busy," he added. "But this evening we'll have a 'private view' of this little invention of mine." Accordingly, Peter made his way to the "taking-off ground", which consisted of a sloping floor of wood, bordered on one side by a belt of sand and on the other by a track of earth covered with coarse grass--the three differently constructed in order to give the pilots experience in rising from various kinds of ground. At the end of the expansive slipway was a lake nearly a mile in length, artificially constructed in order to give the flying-boats practice in taking off from and alighting on water before being dispatched to their tidal river base at San Antonio.