His countenance bore the unmistakable stamp of
integrity, as well as intelligence; and his whole appearance and
bearing were those of a true man.
Had he brought me the newspaper he promised, not yet eight days old,
from San Francisco?
No. He had been detained down-town all day in the whirl of our New York
Babel, and had not yet been home. He would hand it in to-morrow.
Mr. Bonflon had been introduced to me that morning by a friend on whose
acuteness and judgment I felt I had many good reasons to rely. Without
pretending any precise knowledge of the man, or, indeed, any knowledge
at all, beyond what had been gathered from the individual himself in a
very brief acquaintance of Mr. Bonflon's own seeking, he expressed a
warm interest in him personally, as also in the startling discovery he
professed to have made.
In that interview, Mr. Bonflon had informed us in brief, that, after
ten years of patient and toilsome experiment, of disappointment, of
perishing and reviving hope, he had at length achieved the grand object
of his life. He had solved the problem of the navigation of the air. He
had proved by actual results, that the great ocean of atmosphere above
us could be ploughed as successfully and safely as the waters beneath,
and with much greater facility and pleasure.
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