“How much we have enjoyed and appreciated your gift we will never be able to tell,” replied Harold, “but we all tender you sincere and earnest thanks,” in which the rest of the party enthusiastically acquiesced.
“And now since you have come all this way to thank me for my gift I will give you another treat. I will take you all for a trip in my newly perfected air-ship of which the one before you is but the model. The ship itself is in a large enclosure on the other side of the building.”
“How perfectly enchanting that will be!” exclaimed the girls, while the boys thanked him profusely for all the trouble he was taking.
“No trouble, I assure you,” he said, “only a pleasure. Follow me and I will show that my air-ship is as far ahead of the elephant as a fast ocean steamer is ahead of a flatboat.”
“My! what are those people doing who are jumping up in the air and darting about as if shot from a gun?” asked the Princess.
“To be sure! To be sure! It must seem strange to you,” answered the old man, “but that is our mode of locomotion. We propel ourselves through the air instead of walking, as that is too slow to suit our tastes. We do not fly but we use an electric apparatus about the size of a matchbox which we fasten between our shoulders, and one half as large which we wear under the soles of our feet. If we wish to travel in the air to avoid crowds and hindrances we simply press hard upon the soles of our feet and the little contrivances fastened there send us up almost as rapidly as if blown by an explosive, then by the use of handles connected with the boxes between our shoulders, we propel ourselves forward, backward, sideways or in any direction desired. A great many of our people devote all their time to studying new and improved methods of travel for the use of the inhabitants of Earth, for year by year your people seem to be more and more in a hurry and methods which seem perfectly satisfactory one year are all too slow before twelve months have passed by. Well! here we are,” he continued, throwing open enormous doors which led into a large grassy enclosure devoid of trees of any description, in which, pulling at her anchor with every passing breeze, rested the air-ship, “Queen of the Heavens,” as she had been named.
I shall not attempt to describe this beautiful, graceful, convenient marvel but will leave it to the reader’s imagination. I will say, however, that the heaviest metal used in its construction was aluminum, while it was lighted with radium whose dazzling glare was softened by colored globes, and its propelling power was electricity but so perfected that an Earth-born mortal of today would not recognize it as such.
“Now, my dear young people, where shall I take you for a sail? Shall it be to the Moon, to the Dog Star, or still further toward Neptune, or would you like to slowly drop to within a mile of the Earth and then sail around it?”
“Oh! the last!” they all exclaimed in chorus, “for it would be such fun to see the people of Earth gazing at us through telescopes thinking we were inhabitants from Mars coming to visit them.”
“Very well, just as you choose,” he said.