this idea: What military prestige will it give the country that is the first to perfect an airship that can travel two hundred miles an hour—an aeroplane that can actually carry men and bombs? Point out that this means across the Atlantic in fifteen hours. Make him talk new stuff, practical, and cut out the Jules Verne patter.”

Chambers, young and inexperienced, hurried away without a question, knowing well enough that this interview was to fit into another story and that it was his business to get it, and the earlier the better.

“Glidden,” said the night city editor, turning to the oldest reporter of the three, “didn’t you write a Sunday story a few weeks ago on ‘The Limit of the Automobile’?”

“Yes, sir,” was the prompt reply of the pleased young journalist.

“Have you some ideas on the possibilities of the aeroplane?”

“I have,” was the prompt reply. If Glidden had gone further he would have added, “I’m getting up another story on that line now.”

“That’s good,” broke in Mr. Latimer. “We’re going to print a big aeroplane story in the morning. I want a ‘lead.’ The man on the story can’t write it. I can’t tell you anything except that this story concerns the first real airship. Give me half a column of what a real aeroplane ought to do—”

“It ought to go ten miles up in the air,” broke in Glidden impulsively as if anxious to demonstrate that he really had some ideas, “and the time will come when the flying machine will stay in the air more than five days. It will carry fifty people, cross the Atlantic or Pacific and sail two hundred miles an hour—”

“That’s enough,” laughed the editor. “Our machine does two hundred miles. Go to it.”

Glidden, who should have had Stewart’s assignment on the aeroplane story, wanted to ask more but he was too wise to do so. A few minutes later he was back at his typewriter, nervous and excited over the part he was to take in the making of the next morning’s “beat.”

The work of the third man was better known to Mr. Latimer.

“Winton,” he began as if sure that his orders would be carried out to the letter, “you’ve heard of the Airship Boys—those Chicago youngsters who have been starring in aeronautics for several years?”

“I know Bob Russell personally,” answered Winton. “He’s the newspaper man from Kansas City who has been with the boys in all their stunts.”

“Did he ever work in New York?” inquired Mr. Latimer.

“I think not. I believe he’s in business with the Airship Boys. Used to work on the Kansas City Comet.”

“Couldn’t get hold of him?”

“If it’s about some new project of these boys,” laughed Winton, “it’s not worth while. They’re all clams concerning their own affairs.”

“But is this the outfit that interested Mr. Morgan in the Universal Transportation Company last summer?”

“I never worked on the story except once when I tried to get Russell to talk and couldn’t. They had a suite of offices in the Waldorf last July.”

“Call the Waldorf and see what you can find.”

Five minutes later Winton was back at Mr. Latimer’s desk.

“Five or six persons connected with the Aerial Utilities Company had apartments and offices in the hotel until the middle of last August. Then the offices were moved to Chicago. There seems to be a group of these people, all interested in aeroplanes on a big scale and their headquarters I think are in Chicago.”

Mr. Latimer