“Jimmy knows a lot about flying,” volunteered Archie Fox.  “He bones it up all the time.”

“I don’t pretend to know much about it, but I am going to know more before that airdrome gets started,” said Jimmy.

“That’s right,” said Joe Little quietly.  “It won’t hurt any of us to get a bit wiser as to what an aeroplane really is nowadays.  Where do you get the stuff to read, Jimmy?”

“Everywhere I can,” answered Jimmy.  “The weeklies and monthlies generally contain something on flying.”

“My father can get us some good stuff,” suggested Dicky Mann.  Mr. Mann, senior, was the proprietor of the biggest store in the town; and while he did not exactly pretend to be a universal provider, he could produce most commodities if asked to do so.  The store had a fairly extensive book and magazine department, so Dicky’s offer to enlist the sympathies of his father promised to be of real use.

“I’ll write to my brother Bill and get him to fire something over to us from France,” said Harry Corwin.  “There is no telling but what he can put us on to some wrinkles that the people who write things for the papers would never hear about.”

“My aunt just wrote me a letter asking me what sort of a book I wanted for my birthday,” put in Fat Benson.  “I will write to-day and tell her I want a book that will teach me to fly.”

This raised a storm of laughter, for Henry Benson’s stout figure bid fair to develop still further along lines of considerable girth, and the very thought of Fat flying was highly humorous to his mates.

The little group broke up hurriedly as Bob looked at his watch and saw how time was slipping away.

“Back to the grind, fellows!” he cried.  “We’ll have another talk-fest later on.”

That random conversation was one day to bear splendid fruit.  The seeds had been sown which were to blossom into the keenest interest in the real, serious work of the mastery of the air.  Live, sterling young fellows were in the Brighton Academy.  Some of them had declared allegiance to the army, some to the navy, but now here was a stouthearted bunch of boys that had decided they would give themselves to the study of aeronautics, and lose no time about it.

The seven spent a thoughtful afternoon.  It was hard indeed for any one of them to focus attention on his lessons.  The newness of the idea had to wear off first.  After class hours they met again and went off by themselves to a quiet spot on the cool, shady campus.  Seated in a circle on the grass, they talked long and earnestly of ways and means for commencing their study of air-machines and airmen systematically.

“This,” said Jimmy Hill with a sigh of pure satisfaction, “is team-work.  My father said this morning that team-work counts most in this war.  If our team-work is good we will get on all right.”

Team-work it certainly proved to be.  It was astonishing, as the days passed, how much of interest one or another of the seven could find that had to do with the subject of flying.  They took one other boy into their counsels.  Louis Deschamps was asked to join them and did so with alacrity, it seemed to lend an air of realism to their scheme to have the French boy in their number.