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landed. This morning, Hatney had seen her come out of Waldiz’s cabin. I wonder about Waldiz. Is he really a count, and not some kind of swindler who preys on airship passengers?
    In the evening, Count Waldiz again drank absinthe. He was up to no good. First he bet me a thousand dollars he could name more cigar types than I. This he didby cheating. After I had named the Claro, Corona, Corona Gorda, Double Corona, Figurado, Giant, Grand Corona,
    Long Corona, Lonsdale, Maduro, Panatela, Perfecto, Petit Corona, Pyramide, Robusto, Simple Corona, Toro, Torpedo, and Triangular, he named the Valdez.
    “The Valdez?” I asked.
    “Named after my family. Valdez is the Spanish version of Waldiz,” he explained.
    After I paid up, he showed me a pistol and suggested a sporting game of Russian roulette. When I refused, he suggested we try “taking the bridge.” We could force the captain to make the ship do some “dives and loops and things. Great fun, what?” I again refused.
    “But LeRoy, my old friend, does it not drive you mad, all these German rules and regulations? Do you not feel like doing something, making something happen? I mean, here we have to sit in this room to enjoy a smoke. It is an insult to you as a cigar tycoon! Don’t you feel like having a cigar in your cabin?”
    I said yes indeed, and I had hidden a box of matches for that very purpose.
    “Capital! And did you do it? Did you smoke a cigar in your cabin?”
    I explained that I was afraid the steward would smell the smoke or find the ash.
    “Afraid of the steward. LeRoy, youhave a sad case of German-itis! But I will think of some cure, fear not.” There was a mad gleam in his monocle. I’m glad we land tomorrow.
     
    May 6
. Towards evening, we approached our destination, Lakehurst, New Jersey. I had not seen Count Waldiz all day. Then all at once he popped up in the corridor and grabbed my lapels. “LeRoy, my old friend, come and have a final cigar. I’ve found a place where the steward won’t bother you!” He indicated the ladder leading aloft, to the gas envelope – an area expressly forbidden to unaccompanied passengers. I murmured something about seeing to my suitcases.
    The Mad Count leaned towards me, his breath reeking of absinthe (I will henceforth forever hate licorice). “LeRoy, my old friend, you must not be a coward! Imagine, a tobacco czar, afraid to light up! Come up and have a last smoke with me!”
    I followed him up the ladder to the dimly-lit corridor. We found ourselves on a catwalk running the length of the air-ship, past these rows of great cylinders of oiled silk – the gas bags.
    “Just think, LeRoy! These big sausagescontain the clouds of hydrogen that hold us up in the sky! Marvelous!” Waldiz bit the end off a grand corona. “Got a light?”
    I did not feel like a smoke myself, but I handed him my matches. He was about to light it, when a crewmen appeared. “Verboten. This deck is off-limits to passengers! What do you make here, gentlemen?”
    Waldiz looked at him. “We came up because I smell gas.”
    The crewman started, then smiled. “You make a joke, sir. Hydrogen gas has no smell. No smell at all.”
    “Not for ordinary people, but I have a very sensitive nose.” The Count pointed to his nose, which was red and bulbous. “Years of absinthe have sharpened my senses. I tell you, I smell gas! There is a leak!”
    The crewman chuckled indulgently. “Really? Where is this so-called gas leak?”
    Count Waldiz pointed to a dark corner between two gas bags. “Over there, I believe. Let’s have a closer look.”
    He struck a match and lunged forward.
    That’s all I recall until this moment. I am lying on the ground, and my leg seemsto be broken. There’s burning stuff falling all around me – falling, I fear, from the mighty
Hindenburg
. The ship itself is still intact in the air above me, though ablaze.
    Miraculously, my journal and fountain pen have fallen with me, so I can continue my chronicle. No sign of