Cantor.... That point was vague. There was no evidence in support of that vague memory. Had Cantor bent over him as he lay? Had he seen the face of the man who had become his close acquaintance on that lonely island enfolded in the heart of a great marsh? If the main fact were true the subordinate fact might be true as well.... The whole matter was _outré_, bizarre, sinister. Once more the machine veered, banked skilfully and throbbed cityward. It descended in a not over skilful landing and bounded clumsily until it subsided into motionlessness. "I brought him back safely," Potter called to the captain. "And," said Major Craig, with quiet satisfaction, "I've ridden with a motor.... You've got a motor, Mr. Waite." "You think so?... You think it will be worth something?" "Of course this has been no real test, but you've shown enough to make a real test necessary. I believe this motor of yours is far and away the best motor for its purpose in America. That's something. But over there, Mr. Waite, improvements are made overnight that render existing types obsolete. The 'planes of six months ago are antediluvian. The 'planes of a year hence will be--nobody knows what. But you've got something, something to work from, anyhow." "Speed," said Captain Ball, succinctly. "This 'plane doesn't give the motor a chance," said Potter. "With one of those little French fighting-machines I think I could show you speed." Craig nodded. Then Potter and the officers immersed themselves in technicalities of weight per horse-power, lubrication, machining, high altitude, and such future matters as standardization, possible output, time of manufacture. With these matters the day passed. They dined at the club. At the table next on their right sat Fred La Mothe and a young man, of recent prosperity, named Roper. Potter called across: "I hear your father has bought a new Whistler, Fred?" "He's all puffed up over it," Fred said, with a laugh. Roper was applying himself to a steak. He lifted his face and said, "Whistler, did you say?" "Yes." "That's a new car on me. Where's it made?" "The production is very small," said Fred, without a smile. "Mostly they come from Europe." That represented one phase of Detroit, the part of it which had grown so rapidly it had shot past certain stations on the way without so much as a knowledge of their existence. It was producing lopsided men. Roper did not know Whistler, probably had never heard of Meredith, was too busy to understand or care that his speech was crude, sometimes vulgar, always studded with solecisms; yet a great motor company found his knowledge of production in bulk such that it gladly paid him twenty-five thousand dollars a year for the use of it. "Supposing," said the major, "that we should need this twenty-five thousand aeroplanes next year. If events should shape themselves so that we were drawn into the war in the spring, how long would it be before we could hope for deliveries?"