“By the way,” said Will, “did you know that the first steamboat to sail on Lake Geneva was built by an American?”
“No? What was his name?”
“That I don’t know; but he made a great success of it so that an association was formed to go into competition with him with two new boats and, when they were launched, they offered the American a sovereign a day to let his boat lie idly at the dock. He accepted the proposition and was spared all the worries of navigating the lake and of seeing his profits cut down by opposition. That was about a century ago.”
We were interrupted by an odd, droning noise from the direction of Montreux and, looking back, we saw what might have been taken for one of those huge birds, the roc, which we used to read about in the Arabian Nights. It came rapidly nearer and we saw it was a hydro-aeroplane darting down the lake. It must have been at least a thousand feet in the air, but with the spyglass we could see the faces of its passengers.
“I’d like to go up in one of those,” said Will, “but this tyrannical little wife of mine has made me promise that I won’t. Don’t you think that she is exhibiting an undue interference with her lord and master?”
“Am I not perfectly right, Uncle?” asked Ruth with a show of indignation. “I suppose some time they will be made safe; but, till they are, a man who has a wife and children has no business to take such a risk. Suppose a bise should suddenly come down from the mountains.”
Of course I took Ruth’s side; Will would not have liked it if I hadn’t; but I made up my mind then and there that, at the first opportunity, I, not being cramped by any marital obligations, would have a sail in a hydro-aeroplane. What is more, I carried out my purpose. One day everything seemed to favour me; the weather was fine and promised to continue so; Will and Ruth were occupied in some domestic complication; so I went out ostensibly for a walk, but hurried to the station and took a train for Vernex. I found the quai where the hydro-aeroplane starts, and, having been told that it cost a hundred francs, I had the passage-money ready in a bank-note.
I have seen a wild fowl rise from the surface of an Adirondack lake; the wings dash the water into foam, but after it has made a long, white wake, it rises and speeds down the horizon. So, as soon as I had taken my place with one other passenger, a Russian gentleman, the motor was set in motion and we glided out on the lake. Then, with a slight motion of the rudder, as our speed increased, we left the surface and, in an easy incline, mounted high into the air. I liked it all except the noise of the motor; that was deafening.
My favourite dream has always had to do with an act of levitation. I would seem to be standing on the great, granite step of my grandfather’s old house, and then by sheer will power lift myself—only there was no sense of lifting—high out over the river which flowed between the steep banks, a wide, calm stream, and, having made a turn above the swaying elms, come back to my starting-point without any sense of shock.