Page:The Zeppelin Destroyer.djvu/38

 of considerable means, and had it not been so, I fear that we should never have been able to establish such an extensive plant, or go to the big expenses which we had so often to incur.

The secrets of that shed of ours had to be well guarded. Our night-watchman was a retired police-sergeant, John the father of my faithful mechanic, Harry Theed, and in him we reposed the utmost confidence.

'If anyone ever wants to get into this 'ere place, sir,' old Theed often said to me, 'then they'll have to put my lights out first—I can assure you.'

'Well,' Teddy exclaimed presently, as he slowly lit a fresh cigarette. 'Let's adjust things a bit better, and we'll then try how she goes—away out on the pole. It's getting quite dark enough to see—especially with your glasses.'

'Right you are,' I said, and then, after another ten minutes of manipulation with the wires, during which I 'cut out' the aerial and several big glass-and-tin-foil condensers, all was ready for the experiment.

Teddy had drawn a heavy wooden bench in front of the door, and upon it I placed the big box of brown-stained deal which contained our mysterious apparatus from which we both expected such great things. Indeed, that curious machine, had just escaped bringing upon us instant death.

Yet that mishap to which we had been accidentally so near had revealed several things to me, causing me to reflect upon certain crucial and technical points which, hitherto, I had not considered.

In that square, heavy box, connected up by its