Such was the sum of Mr. Bonflon's revelations of the morning. What a discovery! How the announcement would astonish the world! How the practical fact would overturn the world, upset commerce, and transform the habits and relations of mankind! America, the pioneer in many valuable discoveries and reforms, was still ahead,--still destined to lead the van in the development of the powers and resources of Nature, and the onward march of nations.
Hurriedly recalling all these points to mind, I requested to know of Mr. Bonflon how it had been possible, with so many confidants and the prying propensities of the press, whose agents, like an invisible police, are everywhere, to keep the matter from becoming public,--at least, to cover the affair so completely that no hint of the existence of his machine should have been given in any quarter, or of the vast changes which its introduction as a power in the world could not fail to effect.
To this he replied, that the press had behaved very handsomely; that the principal papers of the country had _attachés_ aboard on the first trip to the Pacific; but that all parties--the government, the editors, together with De Aëry and himself--were agreed that the matter should be kept strictly private, until its practicality and value should be established beyond the possibility of question.
I now remembered, that, several years ago, a good deal of noise had been made about a flying-machine which had been constructed in some of the suburbs of the city,--and that a day had been advertised when it was to make an ascent, but, it failed. I mentioned the circumstance to Mr. Bonflon.
"Yes," he replied. "It was at Hoboken. De Aëry and myself spent years in the construction of that machine, and a large amount of money. On the day when the trial of its powers was to have taken place, the weather proved unfavorable, and we met with unexpected delays. The spectators, who had congregated by thousands, became impatient; and the mob, breaking in upon us, destroyed in an hour property which had cost us five thousand dollars and the labor of years."
I felt obliged to sympathize with Mr. Bonflon. He had met with the usual fortune of public benefactors, and particularly of inventors. His success, however, should it prove real, in the unexampled brilliancy of its results, would more than compensate him for all his disappointments and losses. He would rank as the greatest of discoverers,--as the master mind of this master century.