that Wilbur had instructed should be
made to the machine. When the time came to fly, and he was in the
driving-seat waiting for the motor to be started, he called a question
as to whether this detail had been attended to. He was assured it had.
But this was not enough for Wilbur Wright. Climbing from his seat and
walking round the biplane, he made a careful examination for himself,
and then returned quietly to the front of the machine. People who came
to see him fly, and expected some picturesque hero, leaping lightly
into his machine and sweeping through the air, found that reality
disappointed them. This quiet, unassuming man, who slept in his shed
near his aeroplane, and took his meals there also, refused to be feted
or made a fuss of; while his deliberation in regard to every flight,
and his indifference to the wishes or convenience of those who were
watching him, drove nearly frantic some of those influential people
who, coming in motor-cars and with a patronising spirit, thought the
aviator might be treated rather as a superior mountebank, who would be
only too glad to come out and fly when a distinguished guest arrived.

M. Louis Bleriot, whose name was next to become world-famous, after
that of the Wrights, and who owed his distinction to his crossing of
the English Channel by air, revealed in his character determination
and courage, and imagination as well. And yet allied to these
qualities--and here lay his temperamental strength--he had a spirit of
quiet calculation and an eery considerable shrewdness. He knew, and was
not afraid of showing that he knew, the full value of caution. And yet
on occasion also--as in the cross-Channel flight--he was ready to put
everything to the test, and to take promptly and with full knowledge
the heaviest of risks. The motor in his cross-Channel monoplane was an
experimental one of low power, air-cooled, and prone to over-heat and
lose power after only a short period of running. To cross the Channel,
even under the most favourable circumstances, he knew this engine must
run without breakdown for thirty-five or forty minutes. This it had
not done--at any rate in the air--before. There was a strong
probability--and Bleriot knew this better than anyone else--that the
motor would fail before he reached the English shore, and that he
would have to glide down into the sea. It was arranged that a
torpedo-boat-destroyer should follow him, and this afforded an element
of safety. But Bl