"Military significance is an extremely wide term," I ventured to remark. "London heard the bombs last night. To-day we are no longer outside the war-zone. We used, in the good old Victorian days, to sing confidently of our `tight little island.' But it is no longer tight. It seems to me that it is very leaky--and its leakage is towards those across the North Sea who have for so long declared themselves our friends. Friends! I remember, and not so very long ago, standing on the Embankment and watching the All-Highest Kaiser coming from the Mansion House with a huge London crowd cheering him as their friend." "Friend!" snorted Sir Herbert. "He has been far too clever for us. He has tricked us in every department of the State. Good King Edward knew; and Lord Roberts knew, but alas! our people were lulled to sleep by the Kaiser's pretty speeches to his brave Brandenburgers and all the rest, and his pious protests that his only weapon was the olive branch of peace." "Yet Krupp's and Ehrhardt's worked on night and day," I said. "Food, metals, money and war-materials were being collected each month and stored in order to prepare for the big blow for which the Emperor had been so long scheming and plotting." "Yes, truly the menace of the Zeppelin is most sinister," said Roseye across the table. "How can we possibly fight it? We seem to be powerless! Our lawyers are busy making laws and fining people for not creeping about in the darkness at night, and asking us to save so as to pay ex-ministers their big pensions, but what can we do?" "Rather ask whom can we trust?" I suggested. "But, surely, Claude, there must arise very soon some real live man who will show us the way to win the war?" asked Roseye. I drew a long breath. She knew our secret--the secret of that long dark shed out at Gunnersbury which was watched over at night by the sturdy old Theed, father of my mechanic, he being armed with a short length of solid rubber tyre from the wheel of an old disused brougham--about the best weapon of personal defence that could ever be adopted. A blow from that bit of flexible rubber would lay out a man senseless, far better than any iron bar. "Well," said Sir Herbert, re-entering our discussion. "The Zeppelin peril must be grappled with--but who can enter the lists? You airmen don't seem to be able to combat it at all! Are aeroplanes too slow--or what?" "No, Sir Herbert," I replied. "That's not the point. There are many weaknesses in the aeroplane, which do not exist in the big airship--the cruiser of the air. We are only the butterflies--or perhaps hornets, as the Cabinet Minister once termed us--but I fear we have not yet shown much sting." "We may, Claude!" interrupted Roseye with a gay laugh. "Let's hope we can," I said. "But all these new by-laws are, surely, useless. Let's hit the Hun in his home. That's my point of view. We can do it--if only we are allowed."