The Zeppelin raid upon London had set the whole aircraft world agog. Every one at Hendon and Brooklands was full of it, most men criticising the air-services, of course, and declaring vaguely that "something must really be done." It was so very easy to make such a declaration. Old men in their easy-chairs in the London club-windows were saying that very same thing, but nobody could, with truth, point out any real effective remedy against what certain Hide-the-Truth newspapers described as "the German gas-bags." A lot of people were about the aerodrome that afternoon, and Teddy went off to test his engine, while Roseye, drawing on her thick gloves, mounted into her machine which her mechanic had brought out for her. "I shall run over to Aylesbury and back," she told me. "I know the railway line. Shall you go up?" "Probably," I replied, as I stood beside her Duperdussin watching her man adjusting one of the stays which he seemed to think was not quite tight enough. Then, a few moments later, she shot from me with a fierce blast of the exhaust, and in a few seconds had left the ground, rapidly rising in the air. I watched her for some minutes as she skimmed over the tree-tops and rose higher and higher, then satisfying myself that her engine was running well. I turned and crossed to the shed wherein stood my own bus, with the ever-patient Theed awaiting me. The Breguet was brought out, and with a few idlers standing about me, as they always do at Hendon, I climbed into the pilot's seat and began to test my big engine. It roared and spluttered at first, but gradually, with Theed's aid--and he was a splendid mechanic by the way--I got it to run with perfect evenness and precision. Why, I don't know, but my bus usually attracted some onlookers. About the aerodrome we always have a number of idle persons with a sprinkling of the eternal feminine silk-stockinged hangers-on to the pilots and pupils who, not being able to fly, do the next best thing, become friends of flying-men. In that little knot of people gathered about my machine--probably on account of the Zeppelin sensation--I noted, in particular, one podgy fat-faced little man. As I strapped myself into the pilot's seat, after examining my altimeter, compass, etc, and adjusting my self-registering thermometer, I chanced to glance at the people around, and had noticed the man in question. His strange-looking bead-like eyes fascinated me. Upon his round white face was a look of intense interest, yet those eyes, rather narrowly set, struck me as queer-looking and uncanny--eyes such as I had never seen before. Suddenly I wondered if their gaze upon me was some evil omen. Next second I laughed within myself at such an absurd thought. It was the first time in all my life that such an idea had ever crossed my mind, therefore I at once dismissed it. Such thought was most foolish and utterly ridiculous.