quaintances, construct a wooden dove, in no way less miraculous? And
the same Regimontanus, at Nuremberg, fashioned an eagle which, by way of
triumph, did fly out of the city to meet Charles V. But where was I? Oh,
at Bishop Wilkins. Cardan doubted of the iron fly of Regimontanus,
because the material was so heavy. But Bishop Wilkins argues, in
accordance with the best modern authorities, that the weight is no
hindrance whatever, if proportional to the motive power. A flying
machine, says Professor Bell, in the _Encyclopodia Britannica_--(you
will not question the authority of the _Encyclopodia Britannica_?)--a
flying machine should be 'a compact, moderately heavy, and powerful
structure.' There, you see, the Bishop was right."

"Yours was deuced powerful," remarked Barton. "I did not expect to see
two limbs of you left together."

"It _is_ powerful, or rather it _was_," answered Winter, with a heavy
sigh; "but it's all to do over again--all to do over again! Yet it was
a noble specimen. 'The passive surface was reduced to a minimum,' as the
learned author in the _Encyclopodia_ recommends."

"By Jove! the passive surface was jolly near reduced to a mummy. _You_
were the passive surface, as far as I could see."

"Don't laugh at me, please sir, after you've been so kind. All the rest
laugh at me. You can't think what a pleasure it has been to talk to
a scholar," and there was a new flush on the poor fellow's cheek, and
something watery in his eyes.

"I beg your pardon, my dear sir," cried Barton, greatly ashamed of
himself. "Pray go on. The subject is entirely new to me. I had not been
aware that there were any serious modern authorities in favor of the
success of this kind of experiment."

"Thank you, sir," said Winter, much encouraged, and taking Barton's
hand in his own battered claw; "thank you. But why should we run only
to modern authorities? All great inventions, all great ideas, have been
present to men's minds and hopes from the beginning of civilization.
Did not Empedocles forestall Mr. Darwin, and hit out, at a stroke, the
hypothesis of natural selection?"

"Well, he _did_ make a shot at it," admitted Barton, who remembered as
much as that from "the old coaching days," and college lectures at St.
Gatien's.

"Well, what do we find? As soon as we get a whisper of civilization in
Greece, we find Daedalus successful in flying. The pragmatic interpreters
pretend that the fable does but point to the discover