"Continuing in this fashion, the cynosure of all eyes--even the
traffic being suspended to watch him--he passed along Bond Street
into Oxford Street, where he once more alighted on his feet. On
being questioned by a representative of the Press, it transpired
he was Mr. Kelson, one of the partners in the Modern Sorcery
Company Ltd., whose wonderful performances at their Hall, in
Cockspur Street, have already been reported in these columns."
"I should well like to know how that flying trick is done," Shiel said
to himself. "According to Kelson it is entirely a question of will
power. I'll see if I can't develop my concentrative faculty and
introduce a few of the same performances in our show. I'll go to the
Hall and try them now."
But his preliminary efforts were certainly far from successful. He
jumped off chairs saying to himself, "I'll fly! I will fly," and he
struck out heroically each time, but the result was always the
same--gravity conquered--he fell.
Had he not been so much in love with Gladys, he would have desisted;
as it was, the more he bumped and bruised himself, the more determined
he was to go on trying. In fact, flying with him became a mania; and
according to the daily journals, his was by no means the only case.
All over England people were trying to fly. An old lady, in Gipsy
Hill, appeared in the Police Court to answer a charge of causing
annoyance to her neighbours by practising flying, from off her bed, at
night.
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