| Chapter Ten - Free trade |
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Lying abed the morning after the creation of our first flying craft I took stock of our current situation. Will did not know the drain on my finances our creation had caused nor would I dream of burdening him with the knowledge though the simple truth was we were nearing poverty. As was often my habit in circumstances such as these where I needed some inspiration to solve a problem I began to flick through one of fathers reference books, in this case a miscellany. I was reading with some interest a section on underworld slang when I came across a term for a fast ship used in smuggling. Here was our way out.
Walking briskly into the dining area I found William going over his test flight plans for our plane. I wished him a brief good morning and could see by the wry smile on his face he recognized the beginning of an idea brewing within my mind. I entered the library and hurriedly browsed the book titles pulling volumes off the shelves and depositing them on my desk. Anything I could find on smuggling was fair game. I knew some of the materials in great need by the scientists in our country were freely available in other countries and vice versa. Reading through a lengthy treatise on the history of the subject I became aware that what I chiefly needed was a contact in this country who had contacts in other countries a web of illicit commerce if you will. Casting my mind back I lit my pipe and considered the sojourns made by my father to a public house on the coast owned by a friend of his, looking to the name of an inn quoted in the text I made sure they were the same place at which point I smiled to myself. So father's sojourns to the coast had been for rather more interesting reasons than his claimed love of sea air. I chuckled and walked out to see William. I sat down with William and begged his attention while I explained to him the grave news of our current finances, which I must say as testament to his excellent character he took remarkably well, as indeed did he receive the news that my methodology for recovering our financial stability involved no little amount of breaking the law. He soon grasped the fact that had lead me to this idea. We were currently the only men who had the ability of flight; port authorities, customs and the like would have no chance of catching an airborne craft nor could any enforcement agency, pirate or other ne'er do well catch up with us as we attained speeds beyond the imagination of any other vehicle biological or mechanical. It was thus decided that our first flight would be to the coast at midnight the following Sunday to meet my father's contact and from there onwards to adventure in the wider shadowy world of professional smuggling. |
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