made clear
at last."

But the thoughts did not jostle, a curious lethargy began stealing over
him instead, so that his head fell back, and his mouth fell open. This
might have endured until he returned to earth had not the airman stopped
the engines so that they drifted ruminantly in space below the clouds.
With the cessation of the noise Mr. Lavender's brain regained its
activity, and he was enchanted to hear the voice of his pilot saying:

"How are you getting on, sir?"

"As regards the sensation," Mr. Lavender replied, "it is marvellous, for
after the first minute or two, during which the unwonted motion causes a
certain inconvenience, one grasps at once the exhilaration and joy of
this great adventure. To be in motion towards the spheres, and see the
earth laid out like a chess-board below you; to feel the lithe creature
beneath your body responding so freely to every call of its gallant young
pilot; to be filled with the scream of the engines, as of an eagle at
sport; to know that at the least aberration of the intrepid airman we
should be dashed into a million pieces; all this is largely to experience
an experience so unforgettable that one will never--er--er--forget it."

"Gosh!" said the young airman.

"Yes," pursued Mr. Lavender, who was now unconsciously reading himself in
his morning's paper, "one can only compare the emotion to that which the
disembodied spirit might feel passing straight from earth to heaven. We
saw at a great depth below us on a narrow white riband of road two
crawling black specks, and knew that they were human beings, the same and
no more than we had been before we left that great common place called
Earth."

"Gum!" said the young airman, as Lavender paused, "you're getting it
fine, sir! Where will it appear?"

"Those great fleecy beings the clouds," went on Mr. Lavender, without
taking on the interruption, "seemed to await our coming in the morning
glory of their piled-up snows; and we, with the rarefied air in our
lungs, felt that we must shout to them." And so carried away was Mr.
Lavender by his own style that he really did begin to address the clouds:
"Ghosts of the sky, who creep cold about this wide blue air, we small
adventuring mortals great-hearted salute you. Humbly proud of our daring
have we come to sport with you and the winds of Ouranos, and, in the
rapturous corridors between you, play hide-and seek, avoiding your
glorious moisture with the dips and curves and ski