“What for? Why, to cleave the air like a thing of life, so that when the wings are opened out by touching a lever then the pace will be prodigious, though, at first, the machine will have the wings closed up like the arms of a diver before he springs, but once away I should go clean over Wedwell Park.”
“Yes, yes, provided you got over the squire and the Hall.”
“Hear me out, doctor, while I tell you that the great cross-bow stock will be raised on blocks to an angle of 25 degrees, in order that my first leap into space should shoot me clear of the housetops until my wings opened for practical work.”
“Why, man, you would go like a projectile, and, to my thinking, you would be launched into eternity.”
“Should I really. You’re wrong there, Peters; only think how divers sometimes drop from great heights and then turn up safely like corks.”
“But your turn up, Mr Falcon, according to your own account, would last for more than a few seconds, and in that time your senses (or what was left of them) would be whisked out of you in a jiffy.”
“You forget, doctor, that when I reached the park boundaries I should slow down a bit and bring into use my motive power, for without that, I should drop by the run.”
“Just like De Groof did, Mr Falcon, when he was killed at Chelsea over twenty years ago.”
“That poor man was not kept moving on. He wanted propelling, or some other force, as I shall employ.”
“You don’t mean police force, possibly?”