place--was an occasion of unparalleled excitement. Every one was
staring heavenward. More people were run over in the streets
upon that one day, than in the previous three months, and a
County Council steamboat, the Isaac Walton, collided with a pier
of Westminster Bridge, and narrowly escaped disaster by running
ashore--it was low water--on the mud on the south side. He
returned to the Crystal Palace grounds, that classic
starting-point of aeronautical adventure, about sunset,
re-entered his shed without disaster, and had the doors locked
immediately upon the photographers and journalists who been
waiting his return.

"Look here, you chaps," he said, as his assistant did so, "I'm
tired to death, and saddle sore. I can't give you a word of talk.
I'm too--done. My name's Butteridge. B-U-T-T-E-R-I-D-G-E.
Get that right. I'm an Imperial Englishman. I'll talk to you all
to-morrow."

Foggy snapshots still survive to record that incident. His
assistant struggles in a sea of aggressive young men carrying
note-books or upholding cameras and wearing bowler hats and
enterprising ties. He himself towers up in the doorway, a big
figure with a mouth--an eloquent cavity beneath a vast black
moustache--distorted by his shout to these relentless agents of
publicity. He towers there, the most famous man in the country.

Almost symbolically he holds and gesticulates with a megaphone in
his left hand.

6