During the whole of this period of a thousand and one difficulties, each mechanic gave of his best, and I cannot pay too high a tribute to those men who labored for us so competently and painstakingly, and yet received none of the glory. Even those who were but indirectly concerned in the venture searched for opportunities of helping us. The reporters representing the _Daily Mail_, the New York _Times_, and the New York _World_ were often of assistance when extra man-power was required. But for one of the American reporters--Mr. Klauber--we should have been obliged to start without an electric torch when our own failed at the last moment. It was, indeed, a nerve-edging time until the machine approached completion. Each day produced some new difficulty. Alcock kept his head and his temper admirably, however, and his intelligent supervision of the mechanics' work was an effective insurance against loss of time. As the parts of the Vickers-Vimy grew into the semblance of a complete aëroplane it attracted more and more visitors. Many rubbernecks, who seemed to have no other occupation, spent hours in leaning on the nearest fence and watching us. Soon we found it necessary to build a temporary enclosure round the machine. Even that did not keep the curious at a distance. We remained unworried so long as the crowd contented itself with just watching; but the visitors forced us to take special precautions against damage. The testing of the fabric's firmness with the point of an umbrella was a favorite pastime of theirs, and more than once we dispersed small parties whom we found leaning against the trailing-edges, much as Australian soldiers on leave from France used to lean against the lamp-posts of the Strand. One man held his lighted cigar against a wing, and was quite annoyed when asked to keep at a distance. We were still unsuccessful in our search for an aërodrome. One day a telegram arrived from a landowner in Harbor Grace, offering what he called an ideal field. Alcock raced off to inspect and secure it; but when he returned in the evening his one-sided grin told me that we were still out of luck. "The ideal aërodrome" was a meadow about one hundred and fifty by three hundred yards--and the price demanded for its hire was twenty-five thousand dollars plus the cost of getting it ready and an indemnity for all damage. Land _sells_ in Newfoundland at thirty-five cents an acre. Soon afterwards a local inhabitant--Mr. Lester, who had done all our carting--offered us a field under more reasonable conditions, at a place called Monday's Pool. We found it to be a large meadow, half on a hill and with a swamp at the bottom. It possessed, nevertheless, a level surface of about three hundred yards, running east and west.