"I'm going to kiss that stone," I said. "Do you suppose I'd go away now, without kissing it? Why, I'd never hear the last of it! Get hold of my legs," and I sat down, keeping my eyes carefully averted from the hundred-and-twenty-foot drop.
"Oh, but look here," she protested, "I don't know whether I'm strong enough to hold you."
"Yes, you are," I said, making sure that there was nothing in my trousers' pockets to fall out. "Now, then!"
Just then four or five Irish girls came out upon the tower, and Betty, stricken with the fear of losing me, asked them if they wouldn't help, and they said they would; so, with one man and four women holding on to my legs, I let myself over backwards. One doesn't realise how much two feet is, till one tries to take it backwards; it seemed to me that I was hanging in midair by my heels, so I kissed a stone hastily and started to come up.
"That wasn't it," protested one of the girls who had been watching me; "you've got to go farther down."
So they pushed me farther down, and I saw the smooth, worn stone right before my eyes.
"Is this it?" I asked.
"Yes," she said; so I kissed it, and in a moment was right side up again; and I don't know when I have felt prouder.
And then the New Zealander, his face grim and set, began to take things out of his trousers' pockets.
"If you people will hold me," he said, "I'll do it too."