“Like to go up in her? She’s a snorter. Takes the air like a bird; you can feel her planes stretching to the air, and the engine’s like a cat.”
Before he could think twice about it, René found himself sitting up behind Kurt with the machine rushing over the ground and the engine roaring. He could not tell at what point they left the earth, but trees, sheds, houses seemed to fall away as though the earth were tilted up, and then the air rushed in his ears, caught at his throat, pressed hard against his body. He looked down. They were ascending in circles. Roads looked like ribbons, trees like haycocks, trams like toys, men and women were little dots mysteriously and absurdly moving. They hovered for a moment as they turned out of the final circle and made straight for a low gray cloud. Soon they passed through it, and up again. Presently they turned, dipped, and Kurt shut off the engine and they came gliding down; the earth tilted up alarmingly to meet them; houses, trees, sheds slid back into their places. René was startled to find the earth almost immediately flattened out again without the threatened impact, and back they darted to the hangar.
“Glorious?” asked Kurt.
“I—I don’t know yet,” replied René.
“How like you!”
“How do you mean—like me?”
“I mean, to admit that you don’t know. Half the people I take up pretend they like it, though they hate it really. A few, like you, don’t know, but they don’t say so. I wish I’d been the first man to do it.”
René had to walk to get warm again, and he left Kurt in his hangar for a moment to instruct one of his mechanics. He came quickly, caught René by the arm, and laughed, telling him how comic it was to see him in his chauffeur’s clothes, disguised, the truant brother-in-law hiding behind a uniform. René said:
“I’ve got used to it now.”