balloon. He found he needed a new substance, and in the discovery
and manufacture of that new substance he had, as he never failed
to impress upon the interviewers, "performed a far more arduous
work than even in the actual achievement of my seemingly greater
discovery."

But it must not be imagined that these interviews followed hard
upon Filmer's proclamation of his invention. An interval of nearly
five years elapsed during which he timidly remained at his rubber
factory--he seems to have been entirely dependent on his small
income from this source--making misdirected attempts to assure
a quite indifferent public that he really HAD invented what he had
invented. He occupied the greater part of his leisure in the
composition of letters to the scientific and daily press, and
so forth, stating precisely the net result of his contrivances,
and demanding financial aid. That alone would have sufficed for
the suppression of his letters. He spent such holidays as he could
arrange in unsatisfactory interviews with the door-keepers of
leading London papers--he was singularly not adapted for inspiring
hall-porters with confidence--and he positively attempted to induce
the War Office to take up his work with him. There remains a
confidential letter from Major-General Volleyfire to the Earl of Frogs.
"The man's a crank and a bounder to boot," says the Major-General
in his bluff, sensible, army way, and so left it open for the Japanese
to secure, as they subsequently did, the priority in this side
of warfare--a priority they still to our great discomfort retain.

And then by a stroke of luck the membrane Filmer had invented for his
contractile balloon was discovered to be useful for the valves
of a new oil-engine, and he obtained the means for making a trial