I was extremely anxious to go on with my experiments. I appreciated fully that I had made a machine that lifted 2,000 lbs. more than its own weight, and I knew for a dead certainty if I took the matter up again, got rid of my boiler and water tank, and used an internal combustion engine, such as I thought I could produce, that mechanical flight would soon be a _fait accompli_. I had already spent more than £20,000, and was looking about for some means of making the thing self-supporting. I believed that the so-called “captive flying machine” would be very popular, and bring in a lot of money, and it would have done so, if it had been put up as originally designed. I proposed to use my share of the profits for experimental work on real flying machines. That I was not far wrong in believing that such a machine would be a success, is witnessed by the fact that just about the same time, an American inventor thought of the same thing, put up some three or four machines the first year, and the next year about 50. They were highly profitable, and there are fully 140 of them running at the present time in the U.S.A. It is a fact that nothing in the way of side-shows at exhibitions or public resorts has ever had the success of this machine in the U.S.A., and even the little machine at Earl’s Court took £325 10s. in one day and £7,500 in a season. However, this little attempt to make one hand wash the other cost me no less than £10,400, not to mention more than a year of very hard work. This sum would have been amply sufficient to have enabled me to continue my experiments until success was assured. CHAPTER VI. HINTS AS TO THE BUILDING OF FLYING MACHINES. [Illustration: Fig. 40.--Front elevation of proposed aeroplane machine--_a_, _a_, the aeroplanes; _g_, _g_, condenser; _f_, the engine; _q_, guard for screw; _k_, _k_, support for wheels.] [Illustration: Fig. 41.--Side elevation of proposed superposed aeroplane machine--_a_, _a_, main aeroplanes; _b_, _b_, rear aeroplanes; _c_, vertical rudder; _d_, horizontal front rudder; _e_, screw; _f_, motor; _g_, condenser; _h_, steering gear; _i_ and _j_, pneumatic buffers; _k_ and _l_, wheels; _m_, point at which _k_ is pivoted to the main frame; _n_, handle of the steering gear.] [Illustration: Fig. 42.--Plan of proposed aeroplane machine, in which _a_, _a_ are the proposed superposed main aeroplanes; _b_, _b_, the after superposed aeroplanes; _c_, _c_, the forward horizontal rudder; _d_, platform; _e_, screw; _h_, _h_, and _i_, _i_, pulleys used in communicating motion from the steering gear, _f_, to the rudder, _j_; _g_, lever attached to the aeroplane or rudder, _c_, _c_, and connected to the steering gear, _f_.]