Goddard asked, his English thickly accented with the vowels and consonants of his native French tongue. “As ready as I’ll ever be,” John Carlysle said. And then he turned to his two younger sons, Alex and David. “Boys?” he inquired. “Ready, Father,” Alex said. David simply grinned ecstatically. “Hold the side of the basket, please,” Goddard said. And then he placed David’s hands on the wicker railing. John Carlysle tilted his head back and looked directly above him. There, not ten feet away, was an enormous silk and india-rubber envelope—a hydrogen-filled balloon. He and his boys were standing with Goddard in a basket that was suspended from the balloon by a web of silken ropes. Soon they would ascend. “I am now releasing the lines,” Goddard said, with a carnival showman’s dramatic tones and inflections. He slipped various knots, and the balloon, untethered to the earth save for one long line, jerked up into the sky.
