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 'There won't be any more raids for a bit, I feel positive, Miss Lethmere,' was his assurance. 'Our friends across the North Sea are not yet fully prepared with their machinery. The raid on the thirteenth was but a mere rehearsal of what they hope to do. And, as you argue, we should certainly be prepared.'

'You speak almost as though you know,' I remarked, not without some surprise at his words.

'I only speak after surveying the matter calmly and logically,' was his slow reply. 'The German newspapers have—ever since the early days of the war—threatened to bombard London from the air. This last raid has shown that they are capable of doing so.'

'They're capable of anything!' I cried. 'Remember Scarborough!'

'And Belgium,' chimed in Roseye.

'Well,' said Lionel to me. 'You make all sorts of experiments on your new propellers and things down at Gunnersbury. Why don't you try and devise some plan by which we can destroy Zeppelins? You're always so intensely ingenious, Claude,'

'So you've just said. But far better men than myself have tried—and failed,' was my diplomatic response.

'But surely some means can be devised!' he cried. 'Our flying boys are splendid, as you know—and'

'Except when they come to grief, as I did the other day,' I interrupted with a hard laugh.