“That’s all right!” she said. “It’s part of the game!”
“But stop, stop,” insisted Jimmy. “Be careful!”
They were sometimes on the stage for hours at a time, but to Lily, all wrapped in her work, it seemed so many minutes. She understood the jerk which she was to give at the moment when, after rolling along the inclined plane, she should shoot out into space for the soaring flight of fifty yards:
“The start, that’s the great thing with the back-wheel,” she observed. “The rest goes of itself.”
“Don’t cry till you’re out of the wood!” said Jimmy. “It’ll be different when you’re riding the aerobike.”
Lily was longing to begin that famous practice! And, a few days later, she at last had that delight, took that further step toward triumph. Jimmy removed the bird from the cage, fixed it on a stand. When Lily sat in the saddle, she was crimson with pleasure, prouder than a princess sitting on a throne for the first time:
“There,” she said. “Here I am! And what next?”
Jimmy explained the complicated touches—“Press your left foot, there, like that, to make it point upward”—and showed how, explained why; then he passed to the working of the handle-bar—“There, like that, to turn it, there”—and how and why the saddle slipped backward and forward.
“And then?”
“That’s all.”