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Captain Demerest stopped the car smoothly and got out. He was a little early.

Today’s flight to Rome would be an easy one. The reason was that he was flying as a line check captain. Anson Harris, almost as senior as Demerest himself, had been assigned to the flight and would occupy the command pilot’s left seat. Demerest would use the right seat—normally the first officer’s position—from where he would observe and report on Captain Harris’s performance.

Despite the fact that captains checked each other, the tests, both regular and special, were usually serious, exacting sessions. The pilots wanted them that way. Too much was at stake—public safety and high professional standards—for any mutual back-scratching, or for weaknesses to be overlooked.

Yet, Demerest treated any pilot he was assigned to test, junior or senior to himself, in precisely the same way—like a schoolboy summoned to the headmaster’s presence. When Demerest’s own time came they would give him the meanest, toughest check ride he had ever had, but Vernon Demerest turned in a flawless performance which could not be faulted.

This afternoon Demerest prefaced his check session by telephoning Captain Anson Harris at home. “It’ll be a bad night for driving. I like my crew to be punctual, so I suggest you allow plenty of time to get to the airport.”

Anson Harris, who in twenty-two unblemished years with Trans America had never been late for a single flight, was so outraged, he almost choked.

He arrived at the airport almost three hours ahead of flight time instead of the usual one hour.

“Hi, Anson.” Vernon Demerest dropped into an adjoining seat at the counter. “I see you took my good advice.”

“Good evening, Vern.”

“We’ll start the pre-flight briefing twenty minutes earlier than usual,” Demerest said. “I want to check your flight manuals.”

Thank God, Harris thought, his wife had gone through his manuals only yesterday, inserting the very latest amendments.

“You’re not wearing a regulation shirt.”

For a moment, Captain Harris could not believe his colleague was serious. Most pilots bought the unofficial shirts and wore them. Vernon Demerest did too.