The Flight of the Silver Ship: Around the World Aboard a Giant DirgibleMcAlister, Hugh
General
The Flight of the Silver Ship: Around the World Aboard a Giant Dirgible
McAlister, Hugh
Airships -- Juvenile fiction; Voyages around the world -- Juvenile fiction
Radiograms flew back and forth from Friedrichshafen, Tokio, Los Angeles,
San Francisco and New York, while from numbers of American cities came
messages asking the Moonbeam to divert her course sufficiently to pay
them an aerial call.
Mr. Hammond found it hard to refuse these requests. He was so proud of
the Moonbeam that he wanted the whole country to see their American
dirigible. He kept a list of the radiograms, and determined to make a
later trip which would embrace all the larger cities of the United
States. He was bombarded with requests by radio from eager, highly
efficient publicity men, taking time by the forelock, and offering every
known inducement for a word of commendation from him for products
ranging from cigarettes to breakfast bacon. Far away as they still were,
they commenced to feel the stir and restlessness that is America.
High spirits prevailed, and an ever-increasing sense of friendliness. A
pool was made on the day’s mileage, and wagers as to the exact hour and
minute of sighting land. Late in the afternoon the youngest reporter
exclaimed, “Say, d’you know that it’s tomorrow that we gain a day? We go
to bed Monday night and wake up Monday morning. Gee, isn’t that funny?”
“Har, no!” said Doctor Sims. “What’s a day lost or gained in the
immensity of time?”
“Time has no immensity, except in perspective,” said Doctor Trigg. “An
extra day may be of paramount importance to our young friend.”
“He himself is merely an infinitesimal atom,” said Doctor Sims,
regarding the youngest reporter critically. “So are you; so am I.”
“Undoubtedly. But as an atom, I confess that I regard the gaining of a
day with a certain thrill. One day, Nicholas! A day which may change the
course of empire, breed great men, give some needed discovery to the
world, write a deathless song, or see a noble deed done.”
“Or some great wrong,” added Doctor Sims.
“If so, Nicholas, be sure that Time will right it.”
“It will mean an extra eight-eighty on my pay check, anyhow,” said the
youngest reporter.
“Didn’t I tell you, Nicholas?” asked Doctor Trigg.
“You tell me so much!” exploded Doctor Sims wrathfully.
When everyone woke up to their second Monday, there was a feeling that
something out of the ordinary ought to happen to celebrate it. But the
extra day went serenely on its way, with what Doctor Sims called “an
ostentatious lack of incident.”
Whenever they were at liberty David and Red pored over the plans of
David’s invention, and talked about it with technical abandon. David did
not undervalue Red’s help, and it depressed his just and generous heart
to think that they could not benefit together on the invention, but to
secure the patent, manufacture and put it on the market would take more
thousands of dollars than both boys would possess in the next twenty
years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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