MARITIME GUIDE ROPE
had with difficulty cleared the boulevard between the sea wall and the wide-open doors. Assistants and supernumeraries leaned over the wall with outstretched arms waiting for me; below on the beach were others, but this time I did not need them. I slowed the speed of the propeller as I came to them. Just as I was half way over the sea wall, well above them all, I stopped the motor. Carried onward by the dying momentum, the air-ship glided over their heads on toward the open door. They had grasped my guide rope to draw me down, but as I had been coming diagonally there was no need of it. Now they walked beside the air-ship into the balloon house, as its trainer or the stable-boys grasp the bridle of their racehorse after the course and lead him back in honour to the stable with his jockey in the saddle.
It was admitted, nevertheless, that I ought not to be obliged to steer so closely on returning from my flights—to enter the aerodrome as a needle is threaded by a steady hand—because a side gust of wind might catch me at the critical moment and dash me against a tree or lamp-post, or telegraph or telephone pole, not to speak of the sharp - cornered buildings on either side of the
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