The Frenchman is still using one crutch and the crowd is already surging in that direction; but after finding out it ain’t any more silos or windmills, he relies on Cousin Egbert that it really is exciting, and they manage to get through the crowd, though it was excited even now and stepped on him and pushed him a lot.

Still he was game, all right.  I’ve always said that.  He was about as excited as the crowd; and Cousin Egbert was, too, I guess, by the time they had pushed up to the railing.  I guess he was wondering what Wild Western kind of deviltry he was going to see now.  Cousin Egbert had told him it wasn’t a horse race; but he wouldn’t tell him what it was, wishing to keep it for a glad surprise when the Frenchman would see it with his own eyes.

“Just you wait one minute now!” says Cousin Egbert.  “You wait one minute and I bet you’ll be glad you got through that rough crowd with me.  You’d go through ten crowds like that, crutch or no crutch, to see what’s going to be here.”

The poor man was kind of used up, but he stands there waiting for the thrill, with Cousin Egbert beaming on him fondly, like a father that’s going in one minute to show the little tots what Santa Claus brought ’em on the tree.

Then the Frenchman hears a familiar roar and a airplane starts up from the lower end of the field inside the track.

“There!” says Cousin Egbert.  “Now I guess you’re glad you pushed in here, leg or no leg.  I knew it would be a dandy surprise for you.  Yes, sir; the committee got a regular airplane to give a thrilling flight right here in front of us.  You look up in the sky there and pretty soon you’ll see it just as plain, sailing round and round like some great bird; and they say this man flying it is going to loop the loop twice in succession.  Now I bet you’re glad you come!”

Cousin Egbert says right at this minute he begun to take a dislike to the Frenchman.  After he’d took all that trouble to get him there to see something exciting, the Frenchman just looked at him kind of sad for a long time, and then says he believes he’d rather go back some place where he can set down and rest his leg.

Cousin Egbert says he turned out to be like the Frenchmen you read about that is blase about everything in the world and kind of tired of life, not having the least bit of interest in whatever happens.  But, of course, he was polite to his guest and helped push a way back through the crowd, with the crowd more excited than ever by this time, because the flying machine was right up in the air, hundreds of feet off the ground.

“You’ll think I’m a liar,” he says to me; “but it’s the God’s truth this Frenchman just kept pushing through that crowd and didn’t even turn to look up in the air when this man was actually risking his life by looping the loop twice in succession.  He never turned his head the least bit.”

Cousin Egbert says, here he’d been up in one himself and knew what flying meant, but he probably wouldn’t of took the least notice if this dare-devil had been killed right there before thousands.