human
Something new, he said.
gpt
The aeroplane joyrider has come.
human
What's that?
gpt
Hey, Matthews, tell it to Waite!
human
Somebody swiped my hydro,
gpt
At last Matthews has won a first, laughed Eldredge.
human
First aeroplane to be stolen in America.
gpt
What's the joke?
human
No joke.... You wouldn't think it was a joke if you saw my man Mullens. Somebody hit him on the nose with a sledgehammer. Found him tied up in a bundle and dumped in a corner, and blood all over the shop.... This morning. Went down about nine o'clock to sort of look at things. Door was locked. I thought Mullens was off on a bat, and then when I looked inside and saw the machine was gone, I thought he'd gone crazy. He couldn't fly a kite.... Machine clean gone. Then I heard a miawing in one of the lockers, and there was Mullens, all in, with enough waste stuffed in his mouth to choke an elephant. I yanked him out and turned him loose and asked him what was the answer. He said he was reading the paper about ten last night and somebody hammered on the door. Mullens opened it, and before he could sniff the air he got that wallop on the nose. Next he knew a couple of boys were sitting on him and stuffing waste in his mouth. They stuffed him in the locker-room and shut the door, and then in a couple of hours he heard them run the machine out, start the motor, and breeze off.... And that's all. Just clean vanished, going straight up, as near as I can find out. Nobody seems to have seen them or heard them. Not a darn trace.... Now wouldn't that get you?
gpt
Is this real stuff, Matthews? You aren't planting any sort of joke?
human
It's so dam real that I'll pay a little reward of five thousand bucks to the boy that brings the machine back again,
gpt
Hard luck, said Potter.
human
But why the devil should anybody steal an aeroplane? A white elephant would be as easy to hide, and they couldn't sell it. Get pinched the minute they tried that. I don't get the idea.
gpt
Didn't somebody steal a jail once?
human
Did they leave anything behind? Potter asked,
gpt
We haven't found a burnt match that Mullens couldn't account for. It was a clean job. They just appeared--and then--
human
What do the police have to offer?
gpt
I don't think they believe I ever had an aeroplane,
human
If 'planes get as common as automobiles, said O'Mera, who had strolled up,
gpt
You fellows are joshing me, Matthews complained.
human
You wouldn't be so darn funny if somebody had run off with twenty thousand dollars of yours.
gpt
Maybe the Kaiser's army of German reservists who were going to seize the country have grabbed it?
human
You fellows make me sick,