"Wells, H G - The War In The Air" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wells H G)

The advancing wave soon produced a sympathetic ripple in the Bun
Hill establishment. Grubb routed out his flying-machine model
again, tried it in the yard behind the shop, got a kind of flight
out of it, and broke seventeen panes of glass and nine
flower-pots in the greenhouse that occupied the next yard but
one.

And then, springing from nowhere, sustained one knew not how,
came a persistent, disturbing rumour that the problem had been
solved, that the secret was known. Bert met it one early-closing
afternoon as he refreshed himself in an inn near Nutfield,
whither his motor-bicycle had brought him. There smoked and
meditated a person in khaki, an engineer, who presently took an
interest in Bert's machine. It was a sturdy piece of apparatus,
and it had acquired a kind of documentary value in these
quick-changing times; it was now nearly eight years old. Its
points discussed, the soldier broke into a new topic with, "My
next's going to be an aeroplane, so far as I can see. I've had
enough of roads and ways."

"They TORK," said Bert.

"They talk--and they do," said the soldier.

"The thing's coming--"

"It keeps ON coming," said Bert; "I shall believe when I see it."

"That won't be long," said the soldier.

The conversation seemed degenerating into an amiable wrangle of
contradiction.

"I tell you they ARE flying," the soldier insisted. "I see it
myself."

"We've all seen it," said Bert.

"I don't mean flap up and smash up; I mean real, safe, steady,
controlled flying, against the wind, good and right."

"You ain't seen that!"

"I 'AVE! Aldershot. They try to keep it a secret. They got it
right enough. You bet--our War Office isn't going to be
caught-napping this time."

Bert's incredulity was shaken. He asked questions- and the
soldier expanded.