Behind the staterooms, one on either side of the passage, were the wash-rooms, beautifully equipped, one for men and one for women passengers. Everything in the passenger gondola was as near perfect as modern appliances and human ingenuity could make it. They walked back to the radio room, in a corner of which a steel ladder led up into the hull. There they inspected the quarters of the officers and crew; plainer but just as comfortable as those down below. Mr. Hammond, notwithstanding his size, was well muscled and agile. He followed Colonel Porter along the catwalks, among the fuel tanks, and then up the many ladders to the observer’s platform, where they lifted the trap and stepped out on the very top of the ship. “This dock is certainly a big place,” said Mr. Hammond, staring about. “Yes,” replied Colonel Porter. “It is hard to realize its size. You can give its footage, twelve hundred feet long, three hundred and twenty-five feet wide, and two hundred and four feet high, but that doesn’t convey much. But pause to remember that if it was placed in front of the national Capitol at Washington, it would hide the entire building except a little bit of the spire. Or you could lay the Woolworth building and Washington monument down in it, side by side, and almost lose them. Or you could stage ten full-sized football games in it at the same time, and still have plenty of room to spare.” They made their way down through the hull to the gondola, where workmen were now busy putting on electric light fixtures, and went back to Colonel Porter’s office. CHAPTER IV ASSISTANT PILOT A small and well-worn automobile was parked near the great hangar on the Goodlow lot. On the bent and sagging running board sat its owners, David Ellison and Red Ryan. Over three years had passed since the day David had been enrolled as a student in the Goodlow school for apprentices; three years of hard and often discouraging work, but the work had developed him. He was no longer a diffident boy. Manhood sat easily on his broad shoulders. Looking at him, Red Ryan’s honest and loyal heart swelled with pride. He wondered if David had the least idea of his own success. Ryan knew—knew what the other fellows were saying, knew how the officers and pilots talked sometimes, while they stood watching his trained fingers making magical repairs on some weak or broken part. It never occurred to Red that his own uncanny cleverness had set him apart as the best mechanic on the lot. His thought was all for David—David, only twenty-two, and gosh-a-mighty, what he didn’t know about dirigibles! What he hadn’t already done with ’em!