I want to give it a good test while
I'm at it."
Ned looked down through a heavy plate of glass in the floor of the
cabin, and could see Mr. Petrofsky and Eradicate looking up at them.
"Bless my handkerchief!" cried Mr. Damon, when his attention had been
called to this. "It's just like an airship."
"Except that we haven't a bit of machinery on board," said Tom. "These
weights do everything," and he shifted them forward on the sliding rods,
with the effect that the air glider dipped down with a startling lurch.
"We're falling!" cried Ned.
"Not a bit of it," answered Tom. "I only showed you how it worked. By
sliding the weights back we go up."
He demonstrated this at once, sending his craft sliding up another hill
of air, until it reached an elevation of four hundred feet, as evidenced
by the barograph.
"I guess this is high enough," remarked Tom after a bit. "Now to see if
she'll stand still."
Slowly he moved the weights along, by means of the compound levers,
until the air glider was on an "even keel" so to speak. It was still
moving forward, with the wind now, for Tom had warped his wing tips.
"The thing to do," said the young inventor, "is to get it exactly
parallel with the wind-strata, so that the gale will blow through the
two sets of planes, just as the wind blows through a box kite.
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