“Why, Karl, you are dull of comprehension this morning. Surely the presence of the two kites should have suggested what I mean.”
“Ha! you mean a kite, then?”
“Yes, one with a very broad breast, a very thin body, and a very long tail: such as you and I used to make not so many years ago.”
“A paper kite,” said Karl, repeating the phrase mechanically, at the same time settling down, into a reflecting attitude. “True, brother,” he added, after a pause; “there might be something in what you have suggested. If we had a paper kite—that is, a very large one—it is possible it would carry a rope over the summit of the cliff; but, alas!—”
“You need not proceed further, Karl,” said Caspar, interrupting him. “I know what you are going to say: that we have no paper out of which to make the kite; and that, of course, puts an end to the matter. It’s no use our thinking any more about it: since we have not got the materials. The body and bones we could easily construct; and the tail too. But then the wings—ah, the wings. I only wish we had a file of old newspapers. But what’s the use of wishing? We haven’t.”
Karl, though silent, did not seem to hear, or at all events heed, what Caspar had been just saying. He appeared to be buried either in a reverie, or in some profound speculation.
It was the latter: as was very soon after made manifest by his speech.
“Perhaps,” said he, with a hopeful glance towards the wood, “we may not be so deficient in the material of which you have spoken.”
“Of paper, do you mean?”
“We are in the very region of the world where it grows,” continued Karl, without heeding the interrogation.