Page:Air Service Boys over the Rhine.djvu/58

48 wouldn't have been such comparatively slight material damage done."

"The force was mostly expended inside the building," suggested Tom.

"Even so, if it had been a big shell, the kind they fired at Verdun and Liege, there'd be a crater here big enough to put a church in. As it is, only the two top stories are wrecked."

"That's right, agreed Tom. "I wonder what sort of explosive they are using? Must have been one from a bombing aeroplane."

"No, monsieur," interrupted a gendarme who was standing near. "Pardon, for speaking," he went on, with a salute, "but there was no airship observed over Paris at all. The shell came out of the clear sky."

"But it couldn't have," insisted Jack, in reply to this policeman. "If the Germans are firing on Paris they must have some place from which to shoot their gun. Either on the ground or from an airship."

"It was not an airship," insisted the gendarme. "Excuse me for insisting this to one who is in the air service," and he pointed with pride to the uniform the boys wore, "but I have seen several air raids, and I know! There was no airship seen, or I would have blown the alarm," and he motioned to his whistle which he carried for that purpose.