o a hutch on which a tall tripod carried an aerial. There
were no windows, and it appeared to be a kind of sound-proof
call-box, which indeed it was. We went in and as the door
closed, a cluster of three green lights, very small but of
extraordinary brilliance, showed up above a set of instruments.
D'Aubigne sat down and put a pair of receivers to his ears. I
could just see a triangular hole in front of him. He began to
pull plugs out of various holes and insert them in other holes,
and presently he laughed and said, '_Comment!_' and laughed
again. Then, 'A gentleman wishes to know your altitude at this
moment. What is the reading?' A silence and then, 'Four thousand
metres? So! Wait!' He got up and offered me the receivers. I sat
down and put them on, and immediately seemed to be in the midst
of the wildest uproar. It was like kettle-drums playing in a
high wind. I could distinguish the thunder of the exhausts, for
there were two engines and one of them was missing badly and
making noises like gun-shots. 'Speak!' said D'Aubigne into my
neck, so I said, 'Hullo, are you there, Carville?' And a thin,
high, metallic voice, like a gramophone's, sounded among the
noises. 'Yes, I'm here. What's up?' 'Oh,' I said, 'I'm only
trying this thing. How are you?' No reply for a moment, and
then, 'I say, you don't mind if I cut you out, do you.... Having
a beastly time with my port engine?' 'Sorry,' I said. There was
no answer. I told D'Aubigne what Carville had said, and we went
out into the open air again. You know, it seems marvellous,
though I don't suppose it's any more so than many other
inventions. But to think of that chap, nearly thirteen thousand
feet in the air, actually talking to us down on the earth while
he was wrestling with a battery or sparking plug, or something!
Think of him sitting in the midst of that mass of metal and
fabric, between the two thundering engines, doing six things at
once, rushing along at sixty miles an hour, alone, magnificently
alone, with the three lights of the instrument shining like
emeralds in the sunlight! Upon my word, I was so upset with the
extraordinary novelty of the whole experience that I had some
difficulty in getting into harness again. Talk of Glorious Art
indeed! D'Aubigne says Carville is an ass about