The Wrights saw that their most promising opportunity for an immediate contract was through Letellier and _Le Journal_. Consequently, Fordyce, representing that newspaper, came back into the picture. Within a day or two after negotiations were thus resumed, Fordyce came to Berg in an apologetic mood, showing deep embarrassment. He said he had been asked to submit a proposal that it hardly seemed worth while to discuss at all; and yet he had no choice but to convey a message, as had been requested of him, by a man high in government circles. The deal might go through at once, said Fordyce, but there would have to be a little re-wording of the contract. The Wrights must not ask 1,000,000 francs but 1,250,000 francs. Then they would receive their million francs. Berg knew well enough what would happen when he told this to Wilbur. There would be no objection to having the contract call for more money than the Wrights were to receive, said Wilbur calmly, _but_ the contract must give the name of the man who would receive that additional sum. Berg went to the office of the man who had communicated, by way of Fordyce, the astounding suggestion. He hoped there had been some misunderstanding. But to Berg’s astonishment and disgust, the man said with shocking candor that he would indeed expect 250,000 francs ($50,000) as his reward for putting through the deal. Before indignantly walking out of the man’s office, Berg told him the Wrights would never be a party to such financial irregularity and that the negotiations with the Minister of War would have to be carried on without the co-operation of anyone in the Government who expected to be paid for his efforts. (After the first World War that same man was tried for treason.) Meanwhile, Wilbur had cabled to Orville to join him in Paris. And with the prospect that it might be necessary to make a demonstration of what the Wright machine could do, a plane was crated and shipped from Dayton to France. Orville arrived in Paris around the first of August, and the Wright’s chief mechanic, Charlie Taylor, came about a week later. While crossing the Atlantic, Orville had a talk with another passenger that illustrates his possession of a freakish kind of memory. An Englishman had been introduced to him and, after a few moments of conversation, Orville asked if they had not met before. No, the Englishman said, they had not. He had no recollection of any previous meeting, and he was sure if there had been one he would remember it. The man’s face was not familiar, but there was something about his voice and gestures that somehow stirred in Orville old memories. Finally, Orville inquired: “Were you by any chance at the World’s Fair in Chicago back in 1893?” The Englishman nodded. “And,” asked Orville, “did you ever have occasion to explain to a bystander some kind of device at one of the exhibits?” Yes, that also might have happened.