'It bain't no sort o' use; I shall never l'arn t' fly!' grumbled Bob Reid, as he stood rubbing his bruises. He had just come 'a nasty cropper,' and seemed, as he expressed it, to have 'hurt meself all over at wanst.' One hand was rubbing a leg, while the other was busy with a shoulder. 'If I 'ad 'alf a dozen more 'ands I could find plenty for 'em t' do!' he continued ruefully. 'I seem t' be bruised everywhere. Let's give it up, Tom, afore we suicides ourselves unintentional.'
'Not I!' cried Tom Clinch, who was balancing himself on a ladder. He flung his arms—to which two great wings were attached—about wildly, and leaped into the air, gasping as he came floundering down. 'You see, Bob, I 'll master it yet!'
The two sailors had had some 'flying-dresses' lent them, and had been practising and striving for all they were worth to learn the mystic art; but somehow they could not, as Tom put it, 'fall into the knack.'
'It be like swimmin',' Tom went on, between leaps and jumps which would have done credit to a Spring-heeled Jack. 'It takes a long time t' fall inter the knack'——
'Ye'll fall inter the ditch d'reckly,' Bob tittered, as Tom rolled over on the ground. 'It's no use, Tom! Let's be sensible, an' give it up. It ain't dignerfied like fur us two chaps at our time o' life!'
'I be goin' t' try another jump from that there ladder,' returned Tom obstinately. 'You needn't try no more if ye funks it! But when I starts out to do a thing I don't like t' be beat! Other people 'ere does it, so why shouldn't we?'
'Ay, but they l'arns it in their young days,' said Bob.
'Theer 's Mr Gerald—he's gettin' on fine! An' Mr Jack, too, ain't doin' bad at it! He be a-practisin' now just out yonder—t'other side that fence! There he goes now—a-soarin' up in grand style! I 'd give 'alf me month's wages t' be able t' go like that!'
'It's that puff o' wind's took 'old o' 'im,' Bob declared, as he watched Jack perform some rather curious aerial evolutions. 'Strikes me the wind's got 'old of 'im, an 'e can't 'elp 'isself! Yes! Look out fur 'im t' stop 'im, Tom!'
Tom had just succeeded, at the moment this urgent warning was uttered, in again climbing laboriously up the ladder on to a narrow platform which had been erected as a 'jumping-off place' for fliers.