Audiobook: Chatterbox, 1905

CHATTERBOX
By J. Erskine Clarke, M.A.
CRUISERS IN THE CLOUDS.
In the chimney corner of a cottage in Avignon, a man sat one day watching the smoke as it rose in changing clouds from the smouldering embers to the sooty cavern above, and if those who did not know him had supposed from his attitude that he was a most idle person, they would have been very far from the truth. It was in the days when the combined fleets of Europe were thundering with cannon on the rocky walls of Gibraltar, in the hope of driving the English out, and, the long effort having proved in vain, Joseph Montgolfier, of whom we have spoken, fell to wondering, as he sat by the fire, how the great task could be accomplished. 'If the soldiers and sailors could only fly,' he thought, 'there would be no difficulty.'