MY "NO. 9," THE LITTLE RUNABOUT
"You saw me coming all the way from Neuilly," I replied ; "did I throw out any ballast?"
"You threw out no ballast," they admitted.
"Then why should I be in need of gas?"
As a matter of scientific curiosity I may relate that I did not either lose or sacrifice a cubic foot of gas or a single pound of ballast that whole afternoon—nor has that experience been at all exceptional in the very practical little "No. 9" or even in its predecessors. It will be remembered that on the day succeeding the winning of the Deutsch prize my chief mechanician found that the balloon of my "No. 6" would take no gas because none had been lost.
After leaving my fellow-clubmen at St Cloud that afternoon I made a typically practical trip. To go from Neuilly St James to the Aéro Club's grounds I had already passed the Seine. Now, crossing it again, I made the café-restaurant of "The Cascade," where I stopped for refreshments. It was by this time 5 P.M. Not wishing to return yet to my station I crossed the Seine for a third time and went in a straight course as close to the great fort of mount Valerien as delicacy permitted. Then, returning, I traversed the river once again and came to earth in my own grounds at Neuilly.
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