“Why, yes, I suppose so—if you so decree. What about Patterson?”
“Oh, those things you and Alvord must look after. I’ve no head for business. And anyway—must it be attended to at once?”
“Not immediately. Sanford’s estate is so large, and his debtors so numerous, it will take months to get it adjusted.”
“Very well, let anything unpleasant wait for a while, then.”
Now, on this very day, and at this very hour, Fibsy was in Philadelphia, watching the initial performance of a new “human fly.”
A crowd was gathered about the tall skyscraper, where the event was to take place, and when Hanlon appeared he was greeted by a roar, of cheering that warmed his applause-loving heart.
Bowing and smiling at his audience, he started on his perilous climb up the side of the building.
The sight was thrilling—nerve-racking. Breathlessly the people watched as he climbed up the straight, sheer facade, catching now at a window ledge—now at a bit of stone ornamentation—and again, seeming to hold on by nothing at all—almost as a real fly does.
When he negotiated a particularly difficult place, the crowd forebore to cheer, instinctively feeling it might disturb him.
He went on—higher and higher—now pausing to look down and smile at the sea of upturned faces below—and, in a moment of bravado, even daring to pause, and hanging on by one hand and one foot, “scissor out” his other limbs and wave a tiny flag which he carried.