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The War in the Air Chapter 4 Parts 3-5 · The H. G. Wells Library

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Chapter four, Parts three, four, and five of War in
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: the Air. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by William Tomko. War
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: in the Air by H. G. Wells, Chapter four, Parts three,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: four and five. Part three. His door was flung open,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: and a compact young man in uniform appeared, carrying mister
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Butteridge's portfolio, rucksack and shaving glass. I say, he said
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: in faultless English, as he entered. He had a beaming
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: face and a sort of pinkish blonde hair. Fancy you
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: being but a ridge. He slapped Bert's meager luggage down.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: We'd have started, he said, in another half hour. You
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: didn't give your of much time, He surveyed Bert curiously.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: His gaze rested for a fraction of a moment on
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: the sandals. You ought to have come on your flying machine,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: mister Butteridge. He didn't wait for an answer. The Prince says,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I've got to look after you. Naturally, he can't see
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: you now, but he thinks your coming's providential last grace
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: of heaven, like a sign hallo. He stood still and
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: listened outside. There was a going to and fro of feet.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: A sound of distant bugles suddenly taken up and echoed
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: close at hand. Men called out in loud tones, short, sharp,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: seemingly vital things, and were answered distantly. A bell jangled,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: and feet went down the corridor. Then came a stillness
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: more distracting than sound, and then a great gurgling and
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: rushing and splashing of water. The young man's eyebrows lifted,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: he hesitated and dashed out of the room. Presently came
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: a stupendous bang to vary the noises without, then a
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: distant cheering. The young man reappeared. They're running the water
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: out of the ballonet. Already, what water, asked Bert, The
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: water that anchored us. Artful dodge. Eh Bert tried to
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: take it in, of course, said the compact young man.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: You don't understand. A gentle, quivering crept upon Bert's senses.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: That's the engine, said the compact young man, approvingly. Now
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: we sha'n't be long another long listening interval. The cabin
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: swayed by jove. We're starting already, he cried. We're starting, starting,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: cried Bert, sitting up where But the young man was
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: out of the room again. There were noises of German
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: in the passage and other nerve shaking sounds. The swaying increased.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: The young man reappeared. We're off right enough, I say, said, Bert,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: where are we starting? I wish you'd explain? What's this place?
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: I don't understand, what, cried the young man. You don't understand. No,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: I'm all dazed, like from that crack on the nob
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: I got where are we? Where are we starting? Don't
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: you know where you are? What is this? Not a
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: bit of it? What's all the swaying and the row?
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: What a lark? Cried the young man. I say, what
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: a thundering lark. Don't you know? We're off to America
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: and you haven't realized you've just caught us by a neck.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: You're on the blessed old flagship with the Prince. You
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: won't miss anything whatever is on you bet the Vaterland
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: will be there. Us off to America. Ra there in
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: an airship? What do you think me going to America
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: on an airship? Ere? I say, I don't want to go.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: I want to walk about on my legs. Let me
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: get out. I didn't understand. He made a dive for
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: the door. The young man arrested Bert with a gesture,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: took hold of a strap, lifted up a panel in
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: the padded wall, and a window appeared. Look, he said.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Side by side they looked out. Gaw, said Bert. We're
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: going up. We are, said the young man, cheerfully fast.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: They were rising in the air, smoothly and quietly, and
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: moving slowly to the throb of the engine athwart the
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: aeronautic park down below. It stretched dimly geometrical in the darkness,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: picked out at regular intervals by glow worm spangles of light.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: One black gap in the long line of gray ran
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: owned backed airships mark the position from which the vater
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Land had come beside it. A second monster now rose, softly,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: released from its bonds and cables into the air, then
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: taking a beautifully exact distance. A third ascended and then
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: a fourth too late. Mister Butteridge, the young man remarked,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: we're off. I dare say. It is a bit of
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: a shock to you, but there you are. The Prince
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: said you'd have to come look here, said Bert, I
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: really am dazed. What's this thing? Where are we going? This?
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  Speaker 1: Mister Butteridge said, the young man, taking pains to be explicit.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Is an airship. It's the flagship of Prince Carl Albert.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: This is the German air Fleet, and it is going
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: over to America to give that spirited people. What for
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the only thing we were at all uneasy about was
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: your invention. And here you are. But you a German,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: asked Bert. Lieutenant Kurt left, Lieutenant Kurt at your service.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: But you speak English? Mother was English? Went to school
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: in England afterwards, Rhodes scholar German none the less for
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: that detailed for the present, mister Butteridge, to look after you.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: You're shaken by your fall. It's all right, really, they're
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: going to buy your machine and everything. You sit down
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: and take it quite calmly. You soon get the hang
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: of the position. Part four. Bert sat down on the locker,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: collecting his mind, and the young man talked to him
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: about the airship. He was really a very tactful young man,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: indeed in a natural sort of way. Dare say all
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: this is new to you, he said, not your sort
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: of machine. These cabins aren't half bad. He got up
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: and walked around the little department, showing its points. Here
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: is the bed, he said, whipping down a couch from
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the wall and throwing it back again with a click.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Here are toilet things, and he opened a neatly arranged cupboard.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Not much washing, No water. We've got no water at
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: all except for drinking. No baths or anything until we
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: get to America and land rub over with loofah. One
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: pint of hot for shaving. That's all in the locker.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Below you are rugs and blankets. You will need them presently.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: They say it gets cold. I don't know, never been
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: up before except a little work with gliders, which is
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: mostly going down. Three quarters of the chaps in the
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: fleet haven't. Here's a folding chair and table behind a door.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Compact eh. He took the chair and balanced it on
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: his little finger. Pretty light ay aluminum and magnesium alloy,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: and a vacuum inside, all these cushions stuffed with hydrogen. Foxy.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: The whole ship like that, and a man in the
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: fleet except the Prince and one or two others over
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: eleven Stone couldn't sweat the Prince. You know, we'll go
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: all over the thing tomorrow. I'm frightfully keen on it,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: he beamed at Bert. You do look young, he remarked.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: I always thought you'd be an old man with a beard,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: a sort of philosopher. I don't know why one should
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: expect clever people always to be old I do. Bert
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: parried that compliment a little awkwardly, and then the Lieutenant
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: was struck with the riddle why Hare Butteridge had not
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: come in his own flying machine. It's a long story,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: said Bert. Look here, he said abruptly, I wish you'd
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: let me a pair of slippers or something. I'm regular
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: sick of these sandals. They're rotten things. I've been trying
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: them for a friend. Right oh, the ex road scholar
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: whisked out of the room and reappeared with a considerable
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: choice of footwear, umps, cloth bath slippers, and a purple
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: pair adorned with golden sunflowers. But these, he repeated of
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: at the last moment, I don't even wear them myself,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: he said, only brought him in the zeal of the moment,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: he laughed, confidently. Had him worked for me in Oxford
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: by a friend, take him everywhere? So Bert chose the pumps.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: The Lieutenant broke into a cheerful snigger. Here we are
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: trying on slippers, he said, and the world going by
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: like a panorama below rather a lark eh look, Bert
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: peeped with him out of the window, looking from the
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: bright pettiness of the red and silver cabin into a
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: dark immensity. The land below, except for a lake, was
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: black and featureless, and the other airships were hidden. See
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: more outside, said the lieutenant. Let's go, there's a sort
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: of little gallery. He led the way into the long passage,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: which was lit by one small electric light, passed some
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: notices in German, to an open balcony and a light
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: ladder and gallery of metal lattice overhanging empty space. Bird
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: followed his leader down to the gallery, slowly and cautiously.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: From it, he was able to watch the wonderful spectacle
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: of the first air fleet flying through the night. They
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: flew in a wedge shaped formation, the waterland highest and
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: leading the tail receding into the corners of the sky.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: They flew in long, regular undulations, great dark fish like shapes,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: showing hardly any light at all, the engines making a
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: throb throb throbbing sound that was very audible out on
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: the gallery. They were going at a level of five
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: or six thousand feet and rising steadily below. The country
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: lay silent, a clear darkness, dotted and lined out with
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: clusters of furnaces and the lit streets of a group
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: of big towns. The world seemed to lie in a bowl.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: The overhanging bulk of the airship above hid all but
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: the lowest levels of the sky. They watched the landscape
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: for a space. Jolly, it must be to invent things,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: said the lieutenant. Suddenly, how did you come to think
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: of your machine? First? Worked it out? Said Bert, after
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: a pause, Just ground away at it. Our people are
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: frightfully keen on you. They thought the British had got you.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Weren't the British keen in a way? Said Bert. Still,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: it's a long story. I think it's an immense thing
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: to invent. I couldn't invent a thing to save my life.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: They both fell silent, watching the darkened world and following
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: their thoughts, until a bugle summoned them to a belated dinner.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Bert was suddenly alarmed. Don't you have to dress and things?
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: He said, I've always been too hard at science and
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: things to go into society and all that. No fear,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: said Kurt. Nobody's got more than the clothes they wear.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: We're traveling light, you might perhaps take your overcoat off.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: They've an electric radiator each end of the room. And
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: so presently Bert found himself sitting to eat in the
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: presence of the German Alexander, that great and puissened Prince,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Prince Karl Albert, the war Lord, the hero of two hemispheres.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: He was a handsome blond man with deep set eyes,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: a snub nose, upturned mustache, and long white hands. A
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: strange looking man, he sat higher than the others under
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: a black eagle with widespread wings and the German imperial flags.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: He was, as it were, enthroned, and it struck Bert
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: greatly that as he ate, he did not look at people,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: but over their heads, like one who sees visions. Twenty
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: officers of various ranks stood about the table and Bert.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: They all seemed extremely curious to see the famous butter Ridge,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: and their astonishment at his appearance was ill controlled. The
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Prince gave him a dignified salutation, to which by an inspiration,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: he bowed. Standing next to the Prince was a brown faced,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: wrinkled man with silver spectacles and fluffy, dingy gray side whiskers,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: who regarded Bert with a peculiar and disconcerting attention. The
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: company sat after ceremonies. Bert could not understand. At the
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: other end of the table was the bird faced officer
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Bert had dispossessed, still looking hostile and whispering about Bert
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: to his neighbor. Two soldiers waited. The dinner was a
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: plain one, a soup, some fresh mutton and cheese, and
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: there was very little talk. A curious solemnity indeed brooded
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: over everyone. Partly this was reaction after the intense toil
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: and restraint excitement of starting. Partly it was the overwhelming
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: sense of strain new experiences of portentous adventure. The prince
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: was lost in thought. He roused himself to drink to
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: the Emperor in Champagne, and the company cried hawk like men,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: repeating responses. In church, no smoking was permitted, but some
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: of the officers went down to the little open gallery
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: to chew tobacco. No lights whatever were safe amidst that
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: bundle of inflammable things. Bert suddenly felt yawning and shivering.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: He was overwhelmed by a sense of his own insignificance.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Amidst these great rushing monsters of the air. He felt
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: life was too big for him, too much for him. Altogether.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: He said something to Kurt about his head went up
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: the steep ladder from the swaying little gallery into the
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: airship again, and so as if it were a refuge
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: to bed. Part five. Bert slept for a time, and
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: then his sleep was broken by dreams. Mostly he was
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: fleeing from formless terrors down an interminable passage in an airship.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: The passage paved at first with ravenous trap doors, and
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: then with openwork canvas of the most careless description gaw
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: said Bert, turning over after his seventh fall through infinite space.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: That night, he sat up in the darkness and nursed
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: his knees. The progress of the airship was not nearly
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: so smooth as a balloon. He could feel a regular
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: swaying up up, up, and then down down down, and
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: the throbbing and tremulous quiver of the engines. His mind
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: began to teem with memories, more memories, and more through them,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Like a struggling swimmer in broken water, came the perplexing question,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: what am I to do tomorrow? Tomorrow, Kurt had told
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: him the Prince's secretary, the Graf von Winterfield would come
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: to him and discuss his flying machine, and then he
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: would see the Prince. He would have to stick it
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: out now that he was Butteridge and sell his invention.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: And then if they found him out, He had a
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: vision of infuriated Butterridges. Suppose after all he owned up,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: pretended it was their misunderstanding. He began to scheme devices
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: for selling the secret and circumventing Butterridge. What should he
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: ask for the thing? Somehow, twenty thousand pounds struck him
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: as about the sum indicated. He fell into that despondency
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: that flies in wait in the small hours. He had
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: got too big a job on too big a job.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Memories swamped his scheming. Where was I this time? Last night?
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: He recapitulated his evenings tediously and lengthily. Last night he
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: had been up above the clouds in Butterridges balloon. He
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: thought of the moment when he dropped through them and
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: saw the cold twilight sea close below. He still remembered
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: that disagreeable incident with a nightmare vividness. And the night
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: before he and rub had been looking for cheap lodgings
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: at Littlestone in Kent. How remote that seemed now it
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: might be years ago. For the first time, he thought
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: of his fellow desert dervish left with the two red
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: painted bicycles on dimchurch sands. He won't make much of
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: a show of it, and not without me any ow.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: He did have the treasury, such as it was in
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: his pocket. The night before that was bank holiday night,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: and they had sat discussing their minstrel enterprise, drying up
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: a program and rehearsing steps. And the night before was
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: whit Sunday, Lord cried Bert, what a doing that motorcycle
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: give me? He recalled the empty flapping of the eviscerated cushion,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: the feeling of impotence as the flames rose again. From
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: among the confused memories of that tragic flare, one little
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: figure emerged, very bright and poignantly sweet Edna, crying back
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: reluctantly from the departing motor car, See you tomorrow, Bert.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Other memories of Edna clustered round that impression. They led
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Bert's mind step by step to an agreeable state that
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: found expression in I will marry her if she don't
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: look out. And then in a flash, it followed in
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: his mind that if he sold the Butteridge secret. He
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: could suppose, after all he did it, get twenty thousand pounds,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: such sums had been paid. With that, he could buy
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: house and garden, buy new clothes, beyond dreaming by a
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: motor travel, have every delight of the civilized life as
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: he knew it for himself and Edna. Of course, risks
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: were involved. I'll have old Butteridge on my track, I expect,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: he meditated. Upon that, he declined again to despondency. As
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: yet he was only in the beginning of the adventure.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: He had still to deliver the goods and draw the cash,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: and before that, just now he was, by no means
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: on his way home. He was flying off to America
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: to fight there not much fighting, he considered all our
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: own way. Still, if a shell did happen to hit
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: the waterland on the under side, suppose I ought to
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: make my will. He lay back for some time, composing wills,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: chiefly in favor of Edna. He had settled. Now it
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: was to be twenty thousand pounds. He left a number
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: of minor legacies. The wheels became more and more meandering
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: and extravagant. He woke from the eighth repetition of his
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: nightmare fall through space. This flying gets on one's nerves.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: He said. He could feel the airship diving down, down, down,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: then slowly swinging to up up up throb throb, throb
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: throb quivered the engine. He got up presently and wrapped
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: himself about with mister Butteridge's over coat and all the
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: blankets for the air was very keen. Then he peeped
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: out of the window to see a gray dawn breaking
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: over clouds. Then turned up his light and bolted his door,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: sat down to the table and produced his chest protector.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: He smoothed the crumpled plans with his hand and contemplated them.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Then he referred to the other drawings in the portfolio.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Twenty thousand pounds. If he worked it right, it was
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: worth trying anyhow. Presently, he opened the drawer in which
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Kurt had put paper and writing materials. Bert Smallways was
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: by no means a stupid person, and up to a
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: certain limit, he had not been badly educated. His board
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: school had taught him to draw up to certain limits,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: taught him to calculate and understand a specification. If at
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: that point his country had tired of its efforts and
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: handed him over unfinished, to scramble for a living in
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: an atmosphere of advertisements and individual enterprise. That was really
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: not his fault. He was as the state had made him,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: And the reader must not imagine, because he was a
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: little Cockney cad that he was absolutely incapable of grasping
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the idea of the Butteridge flying machine. But he found
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: it stiff and perplexing. His motorcycle and Grubbs experiments, and
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: the mechanical drawing he had done in Standard seven all
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: helped him out. And moreover, the maker of these drawings,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: whoever he was, had been anxious to make his intentions plain.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Bert copied sketches, he made notes. He made a quite
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: tolerable and intelligent copy of the essential drawings and sketches
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: of the others. Then he fell into a meditation upon them.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: At last he rose with a sigh, folded up the
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: originals that had formerly been in his chest protector, and
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: put them into the breast pocket of his jacket, and
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: then very carefully deposited the copies he had made in
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: the place of the origees. He had no very clear
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: plan in his mind in doing this, except that he
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: hated the idea of altogether parting with the secret. For
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: a long time, he meditated profoundly, nodding. Then he turned
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: out his light and went to bed again, and schemed
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: himself to sleep. End of Chapter four, Parts three, four,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: and five. Recording by William tom Coe