More than once he had set
broken limbs for dogs and cats and done it in a manner that aroused the
warmest praise from his father, who, deep down in his heart, knew the
boy had it in him to become a famous surgeon, if he kept along in this
path when he came to take up his life pursuit.
Frank believed he ought to tell about the dastardly attempt to destroy
the monoplane. And, of course, the good doctor, who always thought the
best of people, was horrified to hear his story.
He shook his head sadly after Frank had finished.
"I don't know what people are coming to nowadays," he remarked. "No
matter who did that mean act, it was wicked. Man or boy, he ought to be
severely punished for it. The rights of property seems to be getting
less respect every year. It puzzles me to lay the blame for this spirit
at the right door. But things were not so in my young days, Frank. We
live in fast times, my boy, fast times!"
Frank thought so himself, as he went off to his room. Imagine his
father, some forty years ago, ever dreaming of building an air-ship and
speeding through the upper currents, perhaps thousands of feet above the
earth, at the rate of a mile a minute! And yet that was what he and Andy
had been doing, thinking nothing of the feat, as they became accustomed
to its performance.
Fast times, indeed!
Frank did not allow the startling incidents of the night to keep him
awake.
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