as the sailor prefers
the wide and open sea to a course near land.

After winning the Deutsch prize, Santos-Dumont continued for a time
to amuse himself with dirigibles. I say "amuse" purposely, for never
did serious aeronaut get so much fun out of a rather perilous
pastime as he. In his "No. IX." he built the smallest dirigible
ever known. The balloon had just power enough to raise her pilot and
sixty-six pounds more beside a three-horse-power motor. But she
attained a speed of twelve miles an hour, was readily handled, and
it was her owner's dearest delight to use her for a taxicab, calling
for lunch at the cafes in the Bois, and paying visits to friends
upon whom he looked in, literally, at their second-story windows. He
ran her in and out of her hangar as one would a motor-car from its
garage. One day he sailed down the Avenue des Champs Elysees at the
level of the second-and third-story windows of the palaces that line
that stately street. Coming to his own house he descended, made
fast, and went in to _dejeuner_, leaving his aerial cab without. In
the city streets he steered mainly by aid of a guide rope trailing
behind him. With this he turned sharp corners, went round the Arc de
Triomphe, and said: "I might have guide-roped under it had I thought
myself worthy." On occasion he picked up children in the streets and
gave them a ride.

Though before losing his interest in dirigibles Santos-Dumont
carried the number of his construction up to ten, he cannot be said
to have devised any new and useful improvements after his "No. VI."
The largest of his ships was "No. X.," which had a capacity of
eighty thousand cubic feet--about ten times the size of the little
runabout with which he played pranks in Paris streets. In this
balloon he placed partitions to prevent the gas shifting to one part
of the envelope, and to guard against losing it all in the event of
a tear. The same principle was fundamental in Count Zeppelin's
airships. In 1904 he brought a dirigible to the United States
expecting to compete for a prize at the St. Louis Exposition. But
while suffering exasperating delay from the red-tape which
enveloped the exposition authorities, he discovered one morning that
his craft had been mutilated almost beyond repair in its storage
place. In high dudgeon he left at once for Paris. The explanation of
the malicious act has never been made clear, though many Americans
had an uneasy feeling that the gallant and sport