Page:My Airships.djvu/44

 as a professional mystery. Therefore I bought a new automobile. I should add that this condition of things has changed wonderfully since the foundation of the Paris Aéro Club. Automobile tricycles were just then coming to the fore. I chose one, and rejoiced in its freedom from breakdowns. In my new enthusiasm for the type, I was the first to introduce motor-tricycle races in Paris. Renting the bicycle track of the Parc des Princes for an afternoon I organised the race and offered the prizes. "Common-sense" people declared that the event would end disastrously; they proved to their own satisfaction that the tricycles, going round the short curves of a bicycle track, would overturn and wreck themselves. If they did not do this the inclination would certainly cause the carburator to stop or not to work so well, and the stoppage of the carburator round the sharp curve would upset the tricycles. The directors of the Vélodrome, while accepting my money, refused to let me have the track for a Sunday afternoon, fearing a fiasco! They were disappointed when the race proved to be a great success. Returning again to Brazil I regretted bitterly