fficulties which ended in capsizing the machine almost in sight of
land, the time taken, the speed in miles per hour, the distance
travelled, the records made and broken. He handed out accounts of the
lives of M. D'Aubigne, the inventor, Lord Cholme, the promoter, and Mr.
Francis Lord, the airman. He handed out photographs of the three. He
handed out plans of the triplane. The reporters grew tired of seeing the
press-agent, for he invariably handed out some deadly-dull document
without the ghost of a story attached to it. The kindly human side of
the great adventure seemed non-existent. The public wanted to know what
the great man really looked like, what he had for breakfast, where he
went in the evening, what he thought of Fifth Avenue, of the Woolworth
Building, of our glorious country. And it followed naturally that since
Mr. Francis Lord maintained his silence and invisibility, it devolved
upon the Press to provide imaginative replies to all these burning
questions. They described Mr. Francis Lord, they drew pictures of him in
original attitudes, they reported rumours of his movements, they
conjectured and arranged his future plans, they concocted competitions
between him and illustrious American airmen, they professed to have
heard that a Swiss was already preparing to beat Mr. Francis Lord's
record by a flight from Lake Geneva to Lake Erie, they used all their
genius to make a public success of Mr. Francis Lord and his achievement.

And then they dropped him.

To us, reading the news day by day after breakfast, it was, of course,
inevitable. I think my friend felt it more than I, for he has a profound
faith in publicity. It is the secret of his success as a publicist, I
suppose. His theory is, that no matter how good your article may be, you
cannot sell it unless you advertise. You must boom, you must shout and
show yourself and talk to people. You must "get next." He calls it
"making an appeal." He thinks Mr. Francis Lord and his wonderful
press-agent had not played up to the great traditions of American
newspaper life. He sketched lightly for me a plan which he and Larkin
agreed would have "put him across."

"But," I argued mildly, "what could he do? Do you propose he should hire
a theatre and exhibit himself? Why should he _want_ to be advertised?"

My friend made a movement of impatience.

"You miss the whole point," he retorted. "Why did Whistler wear that
white lock of hair of his? Why did Wilde start t