“Of course, I can. It comes up again, and brings me up with it, ready to go down again. Why, it’s no good. It will be only like a jolly old up-and-down.”
Gwyn stared at his companion.
“What are you talking about?” he said, but in a less confident tone.
“You know, this gimcrack thing that was to do so much. Why the idea’s all wrong. Don’t you see?”
Gwyn stared at his companion again.
“Nonsense!” he cried, “it’s all right. There’ll be a man step on to it at every platform, and then down he’ll go.”
“Of course, and when he has gone down eighteen or twenty feet, up he’ll come again. It sounds very pretty, but it’s all a muddle. It’s just like the story of the man who wanted to go to America, so he went up in a balloon and stayed there for hours and waited till the world had turned round enough, so as to come down in America.”
“Oh, but this is all right; they explained it exactly to my father, and I saw it all plainly enough then: it was as clear as could be,” said Gwyn, thoughtfully. “A man stepped on and went down.”
“Yes, and the beam rose and he came up again.”
Gwyn scratched his head and looked regularly puzzled, and the more he tried to see the plan clearly, the more confused he grew.