“How did you like that?” asked Lieutenant Fauver.

“Great,” said Bob.  Great!  He wanted to say more.  He wanted to explain that a new world had opened to him.  That he had felt the call that would leave him restless until he, too, had mastered one of those marvelous steeds of the air, and was free to soar at will wherever he chose to direct his mount.  Great!  The word expressed so little.  Bob thought of a dozen things to say, but heaved a big sigh of genuine content, and left them all unsaid.

Fauver was of much the same mold as Bob.  He caught something of the younger boy’s mood.  He knew how the lad felt.  His memory took him back to his own first flight.  How long ago it seemed!  How impressed he had been at his first real taste of the sweets of the air-game!  How utterly incapable of expressing his feeling!

So he respected the frame of mind of the lad in front of him and volplaned down in silence, trying the stability of the plane by wide spirals, banking it just enough to be delightful to a passenger, without going far enough to cause the slightest apprehension or nervousness.

It was proving a priceless experience to Bob.  He seemed transported to another existence.  Then the earth began to come nearer.  Things below took quick form.  Bob realized that soon they would be landing.  Just at the last he thought the ground was rising toward them at an astonishing rate.  Surely this was not quite right!  They must be dropping like a stone.  Up, up, came the ground.  Bob unconsciously braced himself for the impact.  They were going to come down with a mighty smash.  He held his breath and set his teeth.  At the very moment when all seemed over but the crash, the graceful plane lifted its head ever so slightly, the engine started roaring again, and they glided to earth and ran along so smoothly that for the life of him Bob could not have told the exact moment the wheels touched the ground.

When they stepped out of the machine Bob did something on the spur of the moment that he laughed about afterward.  He stepped to the lieutenant and put out his hand.  As Fauver took it in a friendly, firm grasp Bob said:  “That was the biggest experience of my life.”  Again that similarity of temperament between the two told Fauver something of the depth of Bob’s feeling, and he said quietly:  “I am glad to have given you a chance to go up, and next time you happen to be around when I am going up, if you can get away for a little while, I would be glad to have you go along.  One of these days I will give you a good long flight, if I get a chance.”

Bob went back to the hangar an older boy.  The enthusiasm still held him close.  The days would drag, now, until he could begin flying.  He was sure of that.