“Why, you wouldn’t chuck us over now, Mr. Harding,” he said deprecatingly.  “It was at your solicitation that the plant was put up here, and I had relied on you for unlimited support.  Why did you go into the manufacture of aerial machines, if you didn’t mean to stick it out?”

“I had two reasons,” was the rejoinder, in tones as cold as a frigid blast of wind, “one was that I thought it was certain we should capture the government contract, and the other was—­well, I had a little grudge I wished to satisfy.”

“But we will capture the government business.  I am not afraid.  There is no machine to touch the Mortlake that I know of——­”

“Yes, there is,” interrupted Mr. Harding; “a machine that may be able to discount it in every way.”

“Nonsense!  Where is such an aeroplane?” “Within a quarter of a mile from here.  To be accurate, young Prescott’s—­you know whom I mean?”

The other nodded abstractedly.

“Well, that youth has a monoplane that has already caused me a lot of trouble.”  The old man’s yellow skin darkened with anger, and his blue pinpoints of eyes grew flinty.  “It was partly out of revenge that I decided to start up an opposition business to his.  He was in the West till a few days ago, and I never dreamed that he would return till I had secured the government contract.  But I am now informed—­oh, I have ears everywhere in Sandy Beach—­that this boy and his sister, who is in a kind of partnership with him have had the audacity to offer their machine for the government tests also.”

“Audacity,” muttered Mortlake under his breath, but Harding’s keen ears caught the remark.

“It is audacity,” agreed the leathern-faced old financier; “and it’s audacity that we must find some way to checkmate.  I’ve never had a business rival yet that I haven’t broken into submission or crushed, and a boy and a girl are not going to outwit me now.  They did it once, I admit, but this time I shall arrange things differently.”

“You mean——­”

“That I intend to cinch that government business.”

“But what if, as you fear, the Prescotts have a superior aeroplane?”

“My dear Mortlake,” the pin-point eyes almost closed, and the thin, bloodless lips drew together in a tight line, “if they have a superior machine, we must arrange so that nobody but ourselves is ever aware of the fact.”

With a throaty gurgle, that might, or might not, have been meant for a chuckle, the old man glided through the doors, which, by this time, he had reached, and sliding rather than stepping into his machine, gave the chauffeur some orders.  Mortlake, a peculiar expression on his face, looked after the car as it chugged off and then turned and re-entered the shop.  His head was bent, and he seemed to be lost in deep thought.

CHAPTER III.

A NAVAL VISITOR

Roy had departed, on an errand, for town.  Peggy, indolently enjoying the perfect drowsiness of noonday, was reclining in a gayly colored hammock suspended between two regal maple trees on the lawn.  In her hand was a book.  On a taboret by her side was a big pink box full of chocolates.