The Flight of the Silver Ship: Around the World Aboard a Giant DirgibleMcAlister, Hugh
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The Flight of the Silver Ship: Around the World Aboard a Giant Dirgible
McAlister, Hugh
Airships -- Juvenile fiction; Voyages around the world -- Juvenile fiction
Someone nudged his elbow. The lieutenant in the next seat held a card
under the edge of the table. On it his new friend had tried his hand at
drawing. A huge, very Japanesque figure with wide shoulders and
something, supposedly the uniform of the Moonbeam, loosely encasing his
form, stood smiling widely. Covering his breast was a medal. At either
side a group of pigmies all ejaculated “_Banzai!_” David recognized
himself under the queer Japanese features, and shook with laughter, to
the great delight of the artist, who was so pleased with his own
cleverness that David made him a present of his gold pencil as a
souvenir.
At four o’clock they were all driven to the garden party given on the
grounds of the Emperor’s palace. David was in Mr. Hammond’s car.
“Well, David, how we do glisten!” said the commander as they took their
seats. “Don’t talk to me after our escorts come aboard, as I am afraid
it isn’t polite. I was proud of you, my boy.”
“Gosh,” said David, “I thought I’d go right plumb through the floor! I
never made a speech in my life. All dressed up like a band wagon, too.
Do I dare take this breastplate off?”
“Heavens, no! We’ve got to wear ’em on every occasion as long as we are
here. Why, David, it’s a tremendous honor.”
“Yes, sir; I suppose so.”
“Quiet does it now. Here come the others. Unfurl your brightest smile,”
and Mr. Hammond turned to the officers approaching the car.
The host at the garden party was the Emperor’s personal representative,
the Minister of Ceremony. He was a gentle, unassuming old man with a
kindly face and the perfect manners made by centuries of ceremonious
usage. He was assisted by many members of the court, of whom Hata was
the most important.
The gardens were lovely beyond words to the appreciative eyes of the
visitors. They seemed like fairyland. Each shrub, each tree, each tiny
plant grew in orderly, exquisite beauty.
David found Dulcie gazing out at a carved and filigreed pavilion which
seemed to have drifted down softly upon the lake, where it rested in a
fringe of bright green water plants.
“I couldn’t bear very much of this,” she said soberly. “It is too
beautiful. It won’t let me be myself at all. I like to be good, but I
couldn’t keep on being as good as I am this minute. I couldn’t stand it.
You know, David, the beautiful places at home shout at you, like an
organ or a big chorus. This whispers and murmurs. You have to stop and
listen to it, and when you do that, it gets you.”
“Come over here and break the spell,” laughed David. “They are serving
American ice cream in the gaudy silk tents beyond that hedge.”
The dinner that night was given by the city of Tokio. Mr. Hammond
promised to send David back to the hotel for Dulcie when it was over, so
that she might see the dancing in the Tea House of a Thousand Flowers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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