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 Art. But has he not compensations?