"It seems pretty simple," he said, as he swung himself out of the nacelle. "I do not think I need detain you, Monsieur Lacroix, if your assistant Georges will be good enough to consider himself my guest, and keep the motor running."
It was in vain that I besought him to have patience. He replied only that his time was limited, and that he had given the subject careful study in theory.
And with that assurance I had to depart, little content. First, however, I warned him of one or two pitfalls—as, for instance, that he must never stop his engine in an emergency, as one does instinctively in an auto, because the greater the danger the more need he would have of motive power to get him out of it. Also, I told him not to fly above trees or water, where the currents would suck him downward, but to steer over the darkest patches of land, where the heat of the sun is absorbed, and the air in consequence rises.
In what state of emotion I was maintained by the letters of Georges during the ensuing fortnight, I will make you judge.
"A moi!" he writes to me in the first week. "I am in the clutch of a madman! Each morning I am awakened at six, that I may plunge with him in the lake of cold water attached to the mansion, he having first made la boxe noisily with a fist ball on the floor directly above. To-day in his machine he has described figures of eight in the space of his grounds even, banking the planes at an inclination affreuse!"
Again he writes: "I am now to accompany him on a cross-country raid. Farewell to my wife and little one. I will die like a Montmartrois for the honor of France!"
Finally an appeal—urgent, pitiful, telegraphic:
"Take me away, je t'en prie! This maniac wishes now to discuss the possibility of a somersault in the air. I can no more—Georges."
Thereupon I replaced him with another mechanic, and he returned, appearing worn and noticeably thinner.
"It seems to me, tout de même," I remarked, "that this young monsieur knows very well what he is about. We have not been asked to repair a single stick of his machine."