“Now,” said I, as I turned back the screw before unstrapping the knapsack, “do you understand how I took long walks, and leaped and jumped; how I ran uphill and downhill, and how the little donkey drew the loaded wagon?”
“I understand it all,” cried he. “I take back all I ever said or thought about you, my friend.”
“And Herbert may marry Janet?” cried my wife.
“May marry her!” cried Mr. Gilbert. “Indeed, he shall marry her, if I have anything to say about it! My poor girl has been drooping ever since I told her it could not be.”
My wife rushed at him, but whether she embraced him or only shook his hands I cannot say; for I had the knapsack in one hand and was rubbing my eyes with the other.
“But, my dear fellow,” said Mr. Gilbert, directly, “if you still consider it to your interest to keep your invention a secret, I wish you had never made it. No one having a machine like that can help using it, and it is often quite as bad to be considered a maniac as to be one.”
“My friend,” I cried, with some excitement, “I have made up my mind on this subject. The little machine in this knapsack, which is the only one I now possess, has been a great pleasure to me. But I now know it has also been of the greatest injury indirectly to me and mine, not to mention some direct inconvenience and danger, which I will speak of another time. The secret lies with us three, and we will keep it. But the invention itself is too full of temptation and danger for any of us.”
As I said this I held the knapsack with one hand while I quickly turned the screw with the other. In a few moments it was high above my head, while I with difficulty held it down by the straps. “Look!” I cried. And then I released my hold, and the knapsack shot into the air and disappeared into the upper gloom.
I was about to make a remark, but had no chance, for my wife threw herself upon my bosom, sobbing with joy.
“Oh, I am so glad—so glad!” she said. “And you will never make another?”