“See here, Hawkins!” I said. “What does this mean?”
“M-m-means that a big wind has caught us,” replied the inventor with a sickly smile.
“And when do you suppose it's going to let go of us?”
“Well—we—we may be able to catch one of those high roofs over there,” murmured Hawkins with assurance that did not reassure. “You—you know we can't go up very far, Griggs. This thing was not built for flying.”
“For anything that wasn't made for the purpose, it's doing wonders,” I retorted. Then a sudden puff sent us up fully ten feet. “Heavens! There goes our chance at those roofs!”
“Dear me! So it does!” muttered the inventor as we sailed gracefully over the chimney-tops. “How unfortunate!”
“It'll be a lot more unfortunate when we pitch down into the street!” I snarled.
“Now, Griggs,” said Hawkins argumentatively as we sped down-town on the steadily rising wind, “why do you always take this pessimistic view of things? Can't you see—is it beyond your little mental scope to realize that we have fairly fallen over a great discovery, something that men have been seeking for ages? Don't you comprehend, from the very fact of our being up here and still rising that these wings accidentally embody the vital principles of the dirigible——”
“Oh, dry up!” I growled as we flitted swiftly past a church steeple.
Hawkins regarded me sadly, and I sadly regarded the street below and tried to assimilate the fact that we were two hundred feet above the ground and rising at every puff of wind; that we were in a crazy clothes-basket, suspended from a crazier pair of wings, absolutely at the mercy of the breeze and likely at any moment to drop to eternal smash!