This from Milton, or "Milt" Finzer, a Louisville lad, now in the Royal Flying Corps for more than a year. "Don't it seem wallopin' to see you in the clubroom again!" "Orry, you stale mutt," this from an Americanized Pole, without a trace of foreign accent, "I'm too glad to see you to talk much about it. When we bombers got back from the raid that night and neither you nor Lafe had showed up, I felt bad enough. Later when Lafe came in with a German plane and a half dead Boche inside, we felt better. But we missed you, Orry." "Did you really and truly miss me?" Erwin asked, this not in a spirit of doubt or incredulity, but only to hear his friend reemphasize it. One likes at times to have welcome truisms reechoed over again. It is human nature I suppose. "Look here, Lex Brodno, you're a Pole --" "Don't spring that on me again, even in joke I am an American, it my folks did come over from Warsaw." "Bully! We're all one over here. That's the way to talk!" Erwin was getting back his old-time spirits. "All one in the good old U.S. All one over here -- eh? Oh, you sinner!" The two walked over to a table, interrupted at every turn by those who wanted to welcome Orry back to the club again. The following morning Erwin resumed his daily stunt of practice, but was heightened mightily in spirit by noticing in the hangar where he had usually gotten his machines a bright new scouting plane, small, with a tail like a dolphin's, an up-to-date machine gun mounted along the top, just where the one pilot at the wheel could handily squint through the sights. "Why, it's British -- one of their latest makes," informed Erwin, much pleased. "It's -- let's see." He was squinting at the monogram. "B-X-3. No. 48." Just then Blaine and Finzer strolled up. "Going out for a little spin, Orry?" queried Blaine, throwing open wider the hangar door. "Look at 'em! Ain't they beauts?" There was a row of eight of these snug-built machines, all the same type and monogram, all with machine guns strapped solidly to the fuselage of each, and with motors of great power and pliability. "You can do anything with these chaps," remarked Milt, "except fly to the moon. But these motors would take you a long way. As for stunts like diving, circling, dipping, playing dead and the like, you never saw the like. I only hope we go out soon. I learn there's a new raid on the taps." Blaine was nosing about one of the machines that was like the others, only a trifle larger and had an observer's seat behind the pilot's. "That's your, Sergeant?" queried Erwin, slightly emphasizing the last word. "Bet your bottee wootees, Corporal!" Another slight emphasis on the last word. "As for yours, take your pick. They're all exactly alike. We must go into preliminary practice today." For an answer Erwin mechanically rolled out the machine he had first examined, and prepared for a short flight. "After all, all, these are much like the planes we used at Vimy last year."