It was not until I was about ten feet off the ground that I began to feel uneasy. I was never one to stomach high altitudes, you might recall, and the sight of ten feet of emptiness beneath me was disquieting.
"Professor," I asked hesitantly, "how do I turn off the belt?"
Burdinghaugh's glass stopped an inch from his lips. "Turn it off?" he countered thickly.
"Yes!" I shouted, now fifteen feet in the air. "How do I turn it off? How do I get down?"
The Professor gazed up at me thoughtfully. "My boy," he said at last, "I never thought about getting down—been much too concerned with getting jolly well up."
"Burdinghaugh!" I screamed. "Get me down!" I was now twenty feet above the ground.
"I'm sorry, old boy, dreadfully sorry," he called to me. "I can't. But don't think your life will have been spent in vain. Indeed not! I'll see to it that you get proper credit as my assistant when the anti-gravity belt is perfected. You've been invaluable, dear boy, invaluable!" His voice faded.