Like that of the Bois, it was deserted. Far down its length I saw a solitary cab. As I guide-roped along it to my house at the corner of the Rue Washington I thought of the time, sure to come, when the owners of handy little air-ships will not be obliged to land in the street, but will have their guide ropes caught by their domestics on their own roof gardens. But such roof gardens must be broad and unencumbered.
So I reached my corner, to which I pointed my stem, and descended very gently. Two servants caught, steadied, and held the air-ship, while I mounted to my apartment for a cup of coffee. From my round bay window at the corner I looked down upon the air-ship. Were I to receive the municipal permission it would not be difficult to build an ornamental landing-stage out from that window.
"No. 9." M. SANTOS-DUMONT LANDS AT HIS OWN DOOR
Projects like these will constitute work for the future. Meanwhile the aerial idea is making progress. A small boy of seven years of age has mounted with me in the "No. 9," and a charming young lady has actually navigated it alone for something like a mile. The boy will surely make an air-ship captain if he gives his mind to it. The occasion was the children's fête at Bagatelle 26th June 1903. Descending among them in the "No. 9," I asked:
"Does any little boy want to go up?"
Such were the confidence and courage of young France and America that instantly I had to choose among a dozen volunteers. I took the nearest to me.
"Are you not afraid?" I asked Clarkson Potter as the air-ship rose.
"Not a bit," he answered. The cruise of the "No. 9" on this occasion was, naturally, a short one; but the other, in which the first woman to mount, accompanied or unaccompanied, in any air-ship, actually mounted alone and drove the "No. 9" free from all human contact with its guide rope for a distance of considerably over a kilometre (half-mile), is worthy of preservation in the annals of aerial navigation.
The heroine, a very beautiful young Cuban lady, well known in New York society, having visited my station with her friends on several occasions, confessed an extraordinary desire to navigate the air-ship.