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Louis every year, nearly, and the gas-bags drift hundreds of miles across the country. I read about several that landed in New Jersey, and one away up in Canada won the prize. This one met with trouble before it got many miles on its journey. And he wants us to report that the Great Republic is down; Anderson, he said his name was, didn't he, Paul?" "Yes, that was it," replied the scoutmaster.
The Zeppelin menace had been almost exorcised in the autumn of 1916 by the effectiveness of explosive bullets fired from aeroplanes which ignited the gas-bags. But on 28 November a solitary aeroplane dropped six bombs on London in full daylight, and thus gave ample warning of what might follow.
"Come, now, are you hungry?" he queried once more. "If ye please, massa," began the little one who was spokesman, 'little folks always are gas-bags, Jim was fond of saying from his six feet of height, "if ye please, massa, we's had nothin' to eat but berries an' roots an' sich like truck for long while."
Apparently, the "Sausage-Killer" was not so blessed in the matter of sight as Tam, for the scout was on his tail and was pumping nickel through his tractor's screw before the destroyer of innocent gas-bags realized what had happened.
The men who fail to make themselves a respectable manhood are the boys who are put to no business, the young men who have nothing to do, the male beings that have no Employment. We have them about us walking nuisances pestilential gas-bags fetid air-bubbles, who burst and are gone. Our men of wealth and character, of worth and power, have been early bound to some useful Employment.
"Keep an eye on me for signals, and remember that the whole fleet must be destroyed rather than one allowed to escape. I want to give the Tsar a nice little surprise. He seems to be getting a good deal too cock-sure about these old gas-bags of his, and it's time to give him a lesson in real aërial warfare."
She was badly deflated, and dropped among trees, over which her empty central gas-bags spread in canopies and festoons. Nothing, however, had caught fire, and her men were speedily at work upon her repair. They behaved with a confidence that verged upon indiscretion.
An' thot's wort' more than gold, an' the likes av me 'n you wadden't know if we was to wade through it, but it's used in the war, I dunno, t' make gas-bags t' kill the inimy, and ye're t' say nawthin' t' nobody er they'll likely take an' hang ye fer a spy on the government, but ye're sa-afe, Mike, s' long as ye sthick t' me an' yer job an' say nawthin' t' nobody, d' ye see."
As the weeks passed by and the months, and still no Zeppelins came, the menace became a jest. The very word of Zeppelin was heard with hilarity. There were comic articles in the newspapers, taunting the German Count who had made those gas-bags. There were also serious articles proving the impossibility of a raid by airships. They would be chased by French aviators as soon as they were sighted.
He had also, of course, read the aërial experiments which had been made by inventors of what the newspapers called airships, and which he, with his hard naval common-sense, called gas-bags with motor engines slung under them. He knew the deadly possibilities of the submarine; the flying gas-bag he looked upon as gas and not much more.
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