“That Thursday night was pretty awful. It was raining, and the weather could be cut with a knife. But once people found out that Slim was going to start, they began to come around to Curtiss Field, and at two o’clock in the morning there was a big crowd of them standing around in the rain and mud. Slim wasn’t leaving from Curtiss, though, and they towed his plane by truck over to Roosevelt. They got there just about when it was getting light. “There was a crowd over at Curtiss, too. But Slim didn’t care. Crowds never mean much to him. He saw a whole lot more of them later on, too, but he never was one to strut or show off. He just got into his fur-lined suit, and waited for the men to start his engine. Somebody asked him if he had only five sandwiches and two canteens of water. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘If I get to Paris, I won’t need any more, and if I don’t get there, I won’t need any more, either.’ It was just like him to say that, but the real reason he didn’t take any more was because he had too much weight already. He had over 200 gallons of gas, and the load was heavy. He had to cut down on everything that wasn’t absolutely necessary. “Well, they started his motor for him. The plane was standing on the Roosevelt runway, which is pretty smooth, and five thousand feet long. The weather had cleared up a little. And there was the monoplane looking all silver and slick, roaring away for all it was worth. Lindy said goodbye to his mother, and to Byrd and Chamberlin and Acosta, who were planning their own trips across the Atlantic, and then he stepped into the cockpit, and closed the door. “He raced his motor a little bit. She must have sounded pretty sweet to him, because he gave her the gun, and off he went. That start must have been one of the hardest parts of the whole trip. The Spirit of St. Louis bumped along that muddy runway, and the people watching thought she’d go over on her nose any moment. She was over-loaded. Her motor was pulling for all she was worth, but it didn’t seem as though they’d ever make it. She went off the ground a few feet, and bounced down again. But then the crowd held its breath. She was leaving the ground. They were up about fifteen feet. And there were telegraph wires in their path. If they hit those, the trip to Paris was over right then. But they didn’t. The landing gear cleared by a few inches. That crowd simply roared. But Slim didn’t hear them. He was on his way to Paris.” Bob paused for breath. He had been talking very fast, carried away by his story. The others did not speak, but sat waiting for him to go on. They had all heard the story before, but as the Captain had said, it bore repeating, and they could hear it again and again. There was something agelessly appealing in the tale of that young man’s feat. Bob was talking again. “I’m not much at poetry,” he said. “You bet you’re not,” said Captain Bill. “I’ve read some of yours.” Bob glared at him. “I never wrote a poem!” he said defensively.