nd
revolutionary principles, on which they had been working for ten
years." Sometimes it was for eight years they had been working. But
always they remarked that "the model from which the machine will be
built has flown perfectly in the presence of some of the most
prominent men in the locality." These machines had a great deal to do
with the mysterious qualities of gyroscopes and helicopters.

Now, Dr. Josiah Bagby, the San Francisco physician and
oil-burning-marine-engine magnate, had really brought three genuine
Bleriot monoplanes from France, with Carmeau, graduate of the Bleriot
school and licensed French aviator, for working pilot; and was
experimenting with them at San Mateo, near San Francisco, where the
grandsons of the Forty-niners play polo. It had been rumored that he
would open a school for pilots and build Bleriot-type monoplanes for
the American market.

Carl had lain awake for an hour the night before, picturing the wonder
of flight that he hoped to see. He rose early, put on his politest
garments, and informed grumpy old Jones that he was off for a
frolic--he wasn't sure, he said, whether he would get drunk or get
married. He crossed the bay, glad of the sea-gulls, the glory of Mt.
Tamalpais, and San Francisco's hill behind fairy hill. He consumed a
Pacific sundae, with a feeling of holiday, and hummed "Mandalay." On
the trolley to San Mateo he read over and over the newspaper accounts
of Bagby's monoplanes.

Walking through San Mateo, Carl swung his cocky green hat and scanned
the sky for aircraft. He saw none. But as he tramped out on the
flying-field he began to run at the sight of two wide, cambered wings,
rounded at the ends like the end of one's thumb, attached to a fragile
long body of open framework. Men were gathered about it. A man with a
short, crisp beard and a tight woolen toboggan-cap was seated in the
body, the wings stretching on either side of him. He scratched his
beard and gesticulated. A mechanic revolved the propeller, and the
unmuffled motor burst out with a trrrrrrrr whose music rocked Carl's
heart. Black smoke hurled back along the machine. The draught tore at
the hair of two men crouched on the ground holding the tail. They let
go. The monoplane ran forward along the ground, and suddenly was off
it, a foot up, ten feet up--really flying. Carl could see the aviator
calmly staring ahead, working his arms, as the machine turned and
slipped away over distant trees.

His first