"Wells, H G - Twelve Stories And A Dream" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wells H G)

who can throw a convincing air of unreality over the most credible
events, and his half-facetious account of the affair appeared
in the magazine page of a popular journal. But, happily for Filmer,
this person's colloquial methods were more convincing. He went
to offer some further screed upon the subject to Banghurst,
the proprietor of the New Paper, and one of the ablest and most
unscrupulous men in London journalism, and Banghurst instantly
seized upon the situation. The interviewer vanishes from the narrative,
no doubt very doubtfully remunerated, and Banghurst, Banghurst himself,
double chin, grey twill suit, abdomen, voice, gestures and all,
appears at Dymchurch, following his large, unrivalled journalistic nose.
He had seen the whole thing at a glance, just what it was and
what it might be.

At his touch, as it were, Filmer's long-pent investigations exploded
into fame. He instantly and most magnificently was a Boom. One turns
over the files of the journals of the year 1907 with a quite incredulous
recognition of how swift and flaming the boom of those days could be.
The July papers know nothing of flying, see nothing in flying,
state by a most effective silence that men never would, could or
should fly. In August flying and Filmer and flying and parachutes
and aerial tactics and the Japanese Government and Filmer and again
flying, shouldered the war in Yunnan and the gold mines of
Upper Greenland off the leading page. And Banghurst had given
ten thousand pounds, and, further, Banghurst was giving five thousand
pounds, and Banghurst had devoted his well-known, magnificent
(but hitherto sterile) private laboratories and several acres of land
near his private residence on the Surrey hills to the strenuous
and violent completion--Banghurst fashion--of the life-size
practicable flying machine. Meanwhile, in the sight of privileged
multitudes in the walled-garden of the Banghurst town residence
in Fulham, Filmer was exhibited at weekly garden parties putting
the working model through its paces. At enormous initial cost,
but with a final profit, the New Paper presented its readers
with a beautiful photographic souvenir of the first of these occasions.

Here again the correspondence of Arthur Hicks and his friend Vance
comes to our aid.

"I saw Filmer in his glory," he writes, with just the touch of envy
natural to his position as a poet passe. "The man is brushed
and shaved, dressed in the fashion of a Royal-Institution-Afternoon
Lecturer, the very newest shape in frock-coats and long patent shoes,
and altogether in a state of extraordinary streakiness between
an owlish great man and a scared abashed self-conscious bounder
cruelly exposed. He hasn't a touch of colour in the skin of his face,
his head juts forward, and those queer little dark amber eyes of his
watch furtively round him for his fame. His clothes fit perfectly
and yet sit upon him as though he had bought them ready-made.
He speaks in a mumble still, but he says, you perceive indistinctly,