“That’s all?” repeated Lily. “That won’t want any smackings! Let’s see, like this, eh? Then that. Suppose I’m coming down at full speed. I throw myself backward, a back push, there, like that. A kick, gently, there, that’s it. I’ll do it as soon as you like! This minute, if necessary!”
But Jimmy, without replying to these sallies, proceeded methodically. He made her practise again, standing still, with the motor going at half-speed. This was a different impulse: the displacement of the air raised a stormy wind, the dust flew, the scenery hanging from the flies waved to and fro and Lily shook in her saddle under the vibration of the propeller.
“Well, Lily?” said Jimmy. “That shakes you up, eh? That complicates matters?”
“Pooh!” said Lily. “And what about the boards? There are some of them that are pretty rough, too! At Pittsburg, you know, it’s like riding over cobblestones. I prefer that to a stage that’s too smooth: it’s less treacherous.”
A few days later, Jimmy ran up a steel cable from the stage to the opening in the ceiling, which was now finished and covered with a tarpaulin; and Lily was to try the flying. At the time for practice, there was no one in the theater, from which the scaffoldings had been removed. There were no seats on the floor or in the boxes: everything was being made outside, and would be put in place in a day or two. In the afternoon, when there was no practice, the house was filled with workmen, painters, upholsterers, carpenters, whose places were taken by others at night, working by electric light. Ten days more and they would have the triumphal opening; already Paris was covered with picture placards: you saw Tom, as a caryatid, supporting the weight of a palace; the Three Graces entwined in their radiant nudity; the impersonator standing, like a Don Juan, surrounded by a bevy of women: the ballet-girl, the shop-girl, the fine lady; then, besides those, the New Trickers—“My idea!” thought Lily, but she didn’t care a jot now—the New Trickers fluttered round Daisy. You saw the elephants; the monkey; Patti-Patty, the white negress; all, all, down to the Bambinis, whom Lily had “got” engaged. The whole program was reverberated on the walls and hoardings, like a thousand-voiced echo. An even larger poster than the others, all blue, strewn with stars, displayed the aerobike in full flight in the sky; and a human figure, seated upon it, lifted a hand filled with rays.
The mere sight of the posters was enough to stimulate Lily to the maddest feats of daring. She felt herself firmer than steel, when she thought of the New Trickers and of Pa and Ma, who were coming with Daisy, their farthing dip!
When everything was ready, Jimmy hung the aerobike to the steel cable by two ropes, ten feet long, ending in pulleys which ran along the cable. Each of these two ropes was looped up and the loop secured with thin twine: this was an infallible way of ascertaining if the aerobike weighed down upon them or if it was supporting itself in the air; the two cords acted as a spring balance registering the tension in the rope. Should the twine break, because the aerobike rested on the ropes, then the ropes would unloop and the machine remain hanging without any danger for Lily. This was the way in which Jimmy had worked when learning “his trade as a bird,” as he called it; and Lily, he had no doubt, would succeed even better than he did, being more supple, lighter and quite as plucky.
Oh, the rapture with which Lily bestrode the aerobike for the first flight!
Jimmy and two confidential assistants hauled up the machine to the top of the inclined plane that gave it its impetus. Jimmy spent an endless time in verifying and testing everything. The electric wire that set the propeller in motion also caused him uneasiness. It had to unroll behind and follow the aerobike without weighing upon it, without retarding its flight; for the machine, which was necessarily a small one, to be able to move within a confined space, did not carry the additional load of a motor, but only a wire, as wireless transmission of power was not yet available. At last, when everything was provided for, Jimmy allowed Lily to make her trial. He trembled; not that she ran any danger, for a fall was impossible: the machine was stopped, up above, automatically, by a cable stretched crosswise and fastened to a strong spring, which slowed and stayed the flight within the space of a few yards. But if the two pieces of twine broke suddenly and if this happened several times in succession, the shocks might come to frighten Lily, for all her self-control.
And Jimmy went on explaining.