In one way Craig’s task is not so difficult—he finds a means of holding on with hands and knees, for there are protuberances upon the wheel which he is quick to utilize.
He casts one look down, but no more. That glance will never be forgotten until his dying day. The Midway seems a mile below, the moving wheel causes a peculiar sensation to pass over him, a dizzy feeling, as though the earth were receding, and some mighty bird were carrying him up, up, higher and higher each second.
After that one terrible experience Craig dares not turn his head again, though there seems to be a wonderful alluring feature, a sort of deadly fascination, about the scene below. Perhaps others have felt something of this same sensation in another form, concerning that same wonderful Plaisance.
Now he has reached the bottom of the car, which is just about beginning to move upon the upper half of the arc. This favors his desperate plans, for the door is within his reach as he hangs upon the massive tire of this most stupendous of wheels.
The cries coming from the car are agonizing in the extreme. Surely the professor must have left the boundary of sham and entered upon the mad reality. He can be heard roaring there like an enraged tiger. Several of the windows have been broken, but the wire netting prevents him from casting himself out. He raves like a madman. Presently his mood may take another turn—prevented from leaping into space by the wisdom of the Ferris wheel management in fastening the doors and screening the windows of the cars, he may attempt violence upon his fellow-voyagers through the air. What may not a crazy man do when mania is upon him?
Craig shuts his teeth hard together, and does not allow this dread to distract his attention from the serious business before him. It so happens that just as he gains a position where the door is within his reach, the wheel ceases to move.
This gives him an opportunity of which he is quick to take advantage. Although the door cannot be opened from the inside, it is not hard to open from the outside.
As he succeeds in opening it the young Canadian gazes upon a scene that arouses all the fighting blood in his veins, for like his cousins across the water in that “tight little island,” he will never look on inactive when a brave heart is needed along with a stout arm to protect the weak.
The crazy professor is a terror—his hair is in a condition of chaos that would drive a Yale football player green with envy, and delight the soul of an erratic pianoforte player of the Polish type. Upon his face there has come a wild look that is not assumed. They played with fire when they selected the professor to engage in this game, for it becomes a reality to him.
There he is, wildly flinging his long arms about his head, thundering phrases in Latin and Greek and Sanscrit, with Heaven alone knows what grammatical correctness, and raging from one end of the car to the other, just as the lions in Hagenbeck’s cages do while looking at the crowds below.