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 when fully developed, will, I feel convinced, mean the buckling-up of the Zeppelin menace.'

'That's quite true, Claude,' Roseye declared. 'At Hendon and elsewhere there are, I know, a number of men intensely jealous of your success, and of the one or two ideas which you have patented, and which are now adopted in the construction of our military aeroplanes.'

'It's really astonishing how many enemies one makes quite unintentionally!' declared Teddy, leaning against the bench. 'Claude has more than I have, I believe—and I never disguise from myself that I've got a really fine crop.'

'Only the other day, when Lionel dined with us, he was speaking to dad about spies,' Roseye said. 'He told us that he felt sure that we had men in our air-service who sent every new development and idea to Germany. Do you think that's really a fact?'

'A fact!' I echoed. 'Why, dearest, of course it is! We've seen the result of it many times. As soon as we had that integral propeller the Germans knew, and copied us; the secret of Jack Pardon's new dope was known in a few days, and the enemy are using it on every one of their machines today. Nothing is secret from those brutes.'

'But who does all this?' asked Roseye.

'Why, what I call the Invisible Hand,' was my reply. 'The Invisible Hand was established in our midst in about 1906, when the Kaiser sat down and craftily prepared for war. He saw himself faced by the problem of the great British power and patriotism, and knew that the Briton would