The Flying-Machine


  AN Ingenious Man who had built a flying-machine invited a great 
concourse of people to see it go up.  At the appointed moment, 
everything being ready, he boarded the car and turned on the power.  
The machine immediately broke through the massive substructure upon 
which it was builded, and sank out of sight into the earth, the 
aeronaut springing out barely in time to save himself.

  "Well," said he, "I have done enough to demonstrate the correctness 
of my details.  The defects," he added, with a look at the ruined 
brick-work, "are merely basic and fundamental."

  Upon this assurance the people came forward with subscriptions to 
build a second machine.