The aeroplane settled down by
the stern, and rose by the bow, so to speak. Then the process was
reversed, and Tom felt himself being catapulted out of his seat.
Only his safety strap held him in place. The same thing happened to
Dick Martin.
Then there was an ominous calm, and the aeroplane slowly settled
down to an even keel, held up on the glass-stripped frames of the
greenhouse, one of the very few in that vicinity, which was
considerably in the rear of the battle line.
Slowly Tom unbuckled his safety strap and climbed out, making his
way to the ground by means of stepping on an elevated bed of flowers
inside the now almost roofless house.
Martin followed him, and as they stood looking at the wreckage they
had made, or, rather, that had been made through no direct fault of
their own, the proprietor of the place came out, wearing a long
dirt-smudged apron.
He raised his hands in horror at the sight that met his gaze, and
then broke into such a torrent of French that Tom, with all the
experience he had had of excitable Frenchmen, was unable to
comprehend half of it.
The gist was, however, to the effect that a most monstrous and
unlooked-for calamity had befallen, and the inhabitants of all the
earth, outside of Germany and her allies, were called on to witness
that never hid there been such a smash of good glass. In which Torn
was rather inclined to agree.
"Well, you did something this time all right, Buddie," Tom remarked
to Dick Martin.
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