Over its making presided Filmer, always a little slow
and very careful in his manner, always with a growing preoccupation
in his mind. His care over the strength and soundness of the apparatus
was prodigious. The slightest doubt, and he delayed everything
until the doubtful part could be replaced. Wilkinson, his senior
assistant, fumed at some of these delays, which, he insisted, were
for the most part unnecessary. Banghurst magnified the patient
certitude of Filmer in the New Paper, and reviled it bitterly
to his wife, and MacAndrew, the second assistant, approved Filmer's
wisdom. "We're not wanting a fiasco, man," said MacAndrew. "He's
perfectly well advised."
And whenever an opportunity arose Filmer would expound to Wilkinson
and MacAndrew just exactly how every part of the flying machine
was to be controlled and worked, so that in effect they would be
just as capable, and even more capable, when at last the time came,
of guiding it through the skies.
Now I should imagine that if Filmer had seen fit at this stage
to define just what he was feeling, and to take a definite line
in the matter of his ascent, he might have escaped that painful
ordeal quite easily.
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