graph?"

My biograph! It is the altitude-registering instrument which also
marks, on a cross-lined chart, the time consumed on each lap of an
aerial voyage. My card should have shown four neat outlines in ink,
something like this--

[Illustration]

one for each stage of my journey, including the forced landing when I
had lost my way. But having started the mechanism going upon leaving
A----, I had then forgotten all about it, so that it had gone on
running while my machine was on the ground as well as during the time
it was in the air. The result was a sketch of a magnificent mountain
range which might have been drawn by the futurist son, aged five, of a
futurist artist. Silently I handed over the instrument. The monitor
looked at it, and then at me without comment. But there is an
international language of facial expression, and his said,
unmistakably, "You poor, simple prune! You choice sample of mouldy
American cheese!"

J. B. didn't return until the following afternoon. After leaving me
over C----, he had blown out two spark-plugs. For a while he limped
along on six cylinders, and then landed in a field three kilometres
from the nearest town. His French, which is worse, if that is
possible, than mine, aroused the suspicions of a patriot farmer, who
collared him as a possible German spy. Under a bodyguard of two
peasants, armed with hoes, he was marched to a neighboring chateau.
And then, I should have thought, he would have had another historical
illusion,--this time with a French Revolutionary setting. He says not,
however. All his faculties were concentrated in enjoying this unusual
adventure; and he was wondering what the outcome of it would be. At
the chateau he met a fine old gentleman who spoke English with that
nicety of utterance which only a cultivated Frenchman can achieve. He
had no difficulty in clearing himself. Then he had dinner in a hall
hung with armor and hunting trophies, was shown to a chamber half as
large as the lounge at the Harvard Club, and slept in a bed which he
got into by means of a ladder of carved oak. This is a mere outline.
Out of regard for J. B.'s opinions about the sanctities of his own
personal adventures, I refrain from giving further details.

These were the usual experiences which every American pilot has had
while on his brevet flights. As I write I think of scores of others,
for they were of almost daily occurrence.

Jackson landed--unintentionally, of course--in a t