He was then 27 years old but he looked at least ten years older. His father was an Italian and his mother was Irish, but Mr. Marconi, except for his bluish eyes and rather light hair, looked strictly like a son of sunny Italy. He had a high forehead, long and rather thin nose, largish ears, a big mouth with a long upper lip which was covered with a straggly mustache, a strong chin and deep-set, serious eyes that seemed to be looking beyond whatever he was looking at. Certainly he was not an inventor of the old school for he was well groomed and dressed in an up-to-date business suit. One thing sure he was not much of a talker and I soon observed that his great part in the game of wireless was a thinking part. His assistants set up a little apparatus which consisted of a receiver only with a telephone receiver hooked up to it instead of the usual Morse register. The aerial wire was led outside through a hard rubber insulator in the window where it was fixed to but insulated from a stout pole, set in the ground. To the free end of this leading in wire the aerial wire proper, when it was held aloft by a kite or a balloon, was to be secured. As his assistants--Mr. Marconi always addressed them as Mr. Kemp and Mr. Paget--were connecting up the instruments there was small show of emotion though I could feel the high tension they were under and shared it with them. Finally the apparatus was connected up and Mr. Marconi tested out the adjustments. Next we got out several big, nine-foot, hexagon-shaped kites whose ribs were of bamboo and which were covered with silk soaked in _dope_ to make it waterproof. These we put together and then from the wicker hamper we took a couple of small silk balloons and filled them with hydrogen gas from cylindrical steel tanks in which it was compressed. At last on Tuesday, December 9th, we were all ready to hoist the aerial wire with either a kite or a balloon, but the wind was still high and a small blizzard was on. Mr. Marconi did not think it advisable to try to make any tests then, and if we were disappointed what must he have been. The next day the wind was still blowing strong but we were all anxious to get to work. “You may try putting up a kite when you are ready, Mr. Kemp,” Mr. Marconi said. Mr. Kemp was soon ready and with the help of a couple of natives--I was one of them--he got the kite aloft. We used a stranded copper wire for the kite string and this was also to serve for the aerial, but the moment we had it well up a gust of wind hit the kite, the wire parted and--we were ready to try again. Mr. Marconi then suggested that we try one of the balloons. We took it outside, fastened the aerial wire to it and, different from the kite, we had no trouble in getting it to go up. No sooner had we let out all the wire than it snapped again and the balloon sailed out to sea.