A FLYING FINANCIER 



newspaper magnate became a believer in the possibili- 

 ties and has been the pioneer in encouragement since. 



There was one man who was constantly sending me 

 telegrams that an ascent would positively take place 

 the next day. He was a chap who had raised every 

 penny he could to perfect his machine. Occasionally, 

 when money ran short, he would go back and work as 

 a mechanical engineer, cheese-paring for weeks until 

 he could scrape enough together to go on with certain 

 improvements to the monster, which was in a rough 

 shed in the outlying districts of the French capital — 

 near Nogent-sur-Marne. With him was what I might 

 call a " financier of the exterior boulevards." This 

 man weighed about eighteen stone, and was only about 

 five feet six in height. He wore a frock-coat and a 

 curious top hat, and was altogether a type of musical 

 comedy. He had great ideas of exploiting the 

 company to work the great flying ship w^hich was one 

 day to make its preliminary ascent. I think that he 

 had found a few hundred pounds. He did not seem 

 to care a jot about the ship itself, but told delightful 

 stories as to what it could do, and then would cast his 

 eye round for those likely to finance it. I always 

 knew when they had done " a touch," for half-a- 

 dozen workmen would be put on ; the stout gentle- 

 man of high finance would eat at a restaurant in 

 the grands boulevards, and he seemed to swell more 

 than ever; and at this period the lean inventor, I 

 believe, really did eat. It never seemed to do him 

 much good, but he became more earnest than ever. 



I am by no means a perfect linguist, and when in the 

 evening a tall, cavernous-cheeked man would come 

 and talk to me at over two hundred words a minute, 

 I really had to ask him to slow down, so that I could 

 understand him better. He was a provincial, and if 

 M 177 



