"He shut up his pocket-book and said no more about it. Cool, eh? I wanted to ask him no end of questions about his past life, but didn't care to. He was ready enough to talk of his experiments though, and asked me to go over to Mersea Island to see his shop. 'Thanks, I will some time,' I said. 'Come now!' he rapped out, and that was what I did. Took the plates out, washed my hands, and scarcely remembered to stopper the acid-bottle. Away we went, tooling through Peldon at about seventy miles an hour. He is certainly a superb driver. Down our lane that big car of his brushed the hedge both sides, but he never slackened at all, either in his speed or his conversation. He had several wealthy people interested, he said, and he was going to do something really big in the flying line. We were nearly flying at the time. Of course, there aren't many people about this part of Essex, but it really was risky. He said this London-to-Paris and London-to-Manchester business was all 'tosh,' he was going to beat that easily. We crossed Mersea Island, turned in at a five-barred gate, and rushed up a hundred-yard plank-road that he had put down. "It is a curious place he has there. A big shed of creosote-boards and felt roof, in the shape of a letter =L=, and at the side a small lean-to affair where he lives. One leg of the =L= is a workshop with an oil-engine to drive it; the other is for his plane, and opens at the end on the plank-road. As we came up a tall chap in a yellow leather suit all smeared with oil came out and I was introduced to his friend D'Aubigne. Can you believe it, old girl--D'Aubigne and I were in Paris together! He had a thing in the Salon the same year as I did, but having money he chucked Art and went in for motoring. We knew each other at once. It shows you what a small and sectional thing fame is, for while he had never heard of _me_, I was equally ignorant of his tremendous importance as an authority on aerial statics. Never heard of aerial statics before, for that matter! Carville seemed quite pleased I knew D'Aubigne, and showed no hesitation in turning me over to him.