--and now quite realising the way in which adequate advertisement

may be obtained--had paid. The latter was one of those writers

who can throw a convincing air of unreality over the most credible

events, and his half-facetious account of the affair appeared

in the magazine page of a popular journal. But, happily for Filmer,

this person's colloquial methods were more convincing. He went

to offer some further screed upon the subject to Banghurst,

the proprietor of the New Paper, and one of the ablest and most

unscrupulous men in London journalism, and Banghurst instantly

seized upon the situation. The interviewer vanishes from the narrative,

no doubt very doubtfully remunerated, and Banghurst, Banghurst himself,

double chin, grey twill suit, abdomen, voice, gestures and all,

appears at Dymchurch, following his large, unrivalled journalistic nose.

He had seen the whole thing at a glance, just what it was and

what it might be.



At his touch, as it were, Filmer's long-pent investigations exploded

into fame. He instantly and most magnificently was a Boom. One turns

over the files of the journals of the year 1907 with a quite incredulous

recognition of how swift and flaming the boom of those days could be.

The July papers know nothing of flying, see nothing in flying,

state by a most effective silence that men never would, could or

should fly. In August flying and Filmer and flying and parachutes

and aerial tactics and the Japanese Government and Filmer and again

flying, shouldered the war in Yunnan and the gold mines of

Upper Greenland off the leading page. And Banghurst had given

ten thousand pounds, and, further, Banghurst was giving five thousand

pounds, and Banghurst had devoted his well-known, magnificent

(but hitherto sterile) private laboratories and several acres of land

near his private residence on the Surrey hills to the strenuous

and violent completion--Banghurst fashion--of the life-size

practicable flying machine. Meanwhile, in the sight of privileged

multitudes in the walled-garden of the Banghurst town residence

in Fulham, Filmer was exhibited at weekly garden parties putting

the working model through its paces. At enormous initial cost,

but with a final profit, the New Paper presented its readers

with a beautiful photographic souvenir of the first of these occasions.



Here again the correspondence of Arthur Hicks and his friend Vance

comes to our aid.



"I saw Filmer in his glory," he writes, with just the touch of envy

natural to his position as a poet passe. "The man is brushed

and shaved, dressed in the fashion of a Royal-Institution-Afternoon

Lecturer, the very newest shape in frock-coats and long patent shoes,

and altogether in a state of extraordinary streakiness between

an owlish great man and a scared abashed self-conscious bounder

cruelly exposed. He hasn't a touch of colour in the skin of his face,

his head juts forward, and those queer little dark amber eyes of his

watch furtively round him for his fame. His clothes fit perfectly



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