“Well, hydrogen gives us eighty pounds to the thousand feet, and helium sixty pounds to the thousand. That works out to eight hundred thousand pounds. You can depend on four hundred tons of useful lift.” “Gosh, that sounds like a lot!” “It’s handy to have.” “It does seem, Port, as though we ought to make more than seventy-five miles an hour with those five huge engines.” “It can’t be done, Harry. Not with a ship that size.” “Did you decide to use the new weave of linen cloth for the covering?” “Yes, it is a great improvement. And the new style seam-lacings hold perfectly. What are you going to name the ship, by the way?” “I selected half a dozen names that sounded good to me,” said Mr. Hammond. “Hammond High-flyer, Harkaway, and some others, but daughter Dulcie objected. Made such a fuss that I said she could name it herself.” “What were her contributions?” asked Colonel Porter with a smile. He knew Dulcie Hammond. “She didn’t bother with a choice. She says the ship is named Moonbeam.” “It is a splendid name. Harry, you don’t know how fine that ship is going to be. She will be the most beautiful ship in the air.” “I want her to be,” said Mr. Hammond with a dogged, grim look that Colonel Porter knew of old. “I am planning to show that ship to the world, Port. She has got to be perfect. What do you think of following the course of the Graf Zeppelin, for a starter, and beating the G. Z.’s time?” Colonel Porter whistled. “I think it would be all right. Her maiden flight, eh? I wonder if she can do it.” “Nothing like trying, is there? When will she be ready to fly?” Colonel Porter reflected. “She will be finished about the first of June. Then she must make some trial flights. You can take off by the fourteenth or fifteenth. You will go, won’t you?” “You bet! I’m commander of that ship. And I want you to pick out a few of the students, all grades, for staff. I think it would be a wonderful try-out for them.” “I’ll do it,” said Colonel Porter with enthusiasm. “Why don’t you come along, Port? You need a rest.” Colonel Porter groaned. “Rest? Why, Harry, we are simply swamped with work. I couldn’t possibly get away.” “I wish you could,” said Mr. Hammond, and was silent a few moments. “Those gas bags,” he continued, following the train of his thought, “they are absolutely impervious to any kind of gas, aren’t they?” “Absolutely, when made of the substance we call, for lack of a better name, gold-beater’s skin. You know gold-beaters beat their gold into the tissue-like sheets used by the trade, by putting it between layers of the split and cleansed intestines of the ox, and pounding it. For the gas bags, they split and clean the intestines, and lay them out with overlapping edges. Others are laid on top, at right angles. These congeal into a mass of fabric, which is flexible, yet perfectly impervious.” “It certainly beats all,” said Mr. Hammond. “By the way, Port, whom shall I take on as captain? Got a good man?”