bout accidents or mysteries,
if YOU please.

"I chose my Paul Veroner monoplane for the job. There's nothing like a
monoplane when real work is to be done. Beaumont found that out in very
early days. For one thing it doesn't mind damp, and the weather looks
as if we should be in the clouds all the time. It's a bonny little
model and answers my hand like a tender-mouthed horse. The engine is a
ten-cylinder rotary Robur working up to one hundred and seventy-five.
It has all the modern improvements--enclosed fuselage, high-curved
landing skids, brakes, gyroscopic steadiers, and three speeds, worked
by an alteration of the angle of the planes upon the Venetian-blind
principle. I took a shot-gun with me and a dozen cartridges filled
with buck-shot. You should have seen the face of Perkins, my old
mechanic, when I directed him to put them in. I was dressed like an
Arctic explorer, with two jerseys under my overalls, thick socks inside
my padded boots, a storm-cap with flaps, and my talc goggles. It was
stifling outside the hangars, but I was going for the summit of the
Himalayas, and had to dress for the part. Perkins knew there was
something on and implored me to take him with me. Perhaps I should if
I were using the biplane, but a monoplane is a one-man show--if you
want to get the last foot of life out of it. Of course, I took an
oxygen bag; the man who goes for the altitude record without one will
either be frozen or smothered--or both.

"I had a good look at the planes, the rudder-bar, and the elevating
lever before I got in. Everything was in order so far as I could see.
Then I switched on my engine and found that she was running sweetly.
When they let her go she rose almost at once upon the lowest speed. I
circled my home field once or twice just to warm her up, and then with
a wave to Perkins and the others, I flattened out my planes and put her
on her highest. She skimmed like a swallow down wind for eight or ten
miles until I turned her nose up a little and she began to climb in a
great spiral for the cloud-bank above me. It's all-important to rise
slowly and adapt yourself to the pressure as you go.

"It was a close, warm day for an English September, and there was the
hush and heaviness of impending rain. Now and then there came sudden
puffs of wind from the south-west--one of them so gusty and unexpected
that it caught me napping and turned me half-round for an instant. I
remember the time when