MY "NO. 9," THE LITTLE RUNABOUT
Paris if one goes about it at the proper moment. I have done it.
I have guide-roped round the Arc de Triomphe and down the Avenue des Champs Elysées at as low an altitude as the house-tops on either side, fearing no ill and finding no difficulty. My first flight of this kind occurred when I sought for the first time to land in my "No. 9 " in front of my own house door, at the corner of the Avenue des Champs Elysées and the Rue Washington, on Tuesday, 23rd June 1903.
Knowing that the feat must be accomplished at an hour when the imposing pleasure promenade of Paris would be least encumbered, I had instructed my men to sleep through the early part of the night in the air-ship station at Neuilly St James so as to be able to have the "No. 9" ready for an early start at dawn. I myself rose at 2 A.M., and in my handy electric automobile arrived at the station while it was yet dark. The men still slept. I climbed the wall, waked them, and succeeded in quitting the earth on my first diagonally upward course over the wall and above the River Seine before the day had broken. Turning to the left, I made my way across the Bois, picking out
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