"
Fortunately, he fell on the tabby cat, which somewhat broke the shock
of concussion, and he escaped unhurt.
In College Road, Clifton, Bristol, an octogenarian thinking he would
add novelty to the Jubilee celebrations at the College, leaped off the
roof of his house, crying, "I'll fly over the Close! I will fly over
the Close!"--and broke his neck.
In St. Ives, Cornwall, where the treatment of animals is none too
humane, a fisher-boy threw a visitor's Pomeranian over the Malakoff
saying, "You shall fly! You shall remain in the air;" whilst at Bath a
girl of ten, snatching her baby brother from the perambulator, leaped
over Beechen Cliff, calling out, "We will fly together! We will fly
together!"
These are only a few of the many similar cases Shiel read in the
paper, and which he narrated afterwards to Gladys Martin.
"I am quite convinced," Gladys said, "that Kelson does his flying
through supernatural agency. His assertion that it can be done through
mere will power, is sheer humbug. It wouldn't be a bad idea to consult
a clairvoyant. What do you think?"
Shiel thought it was an excellent suggestion. He saw in it an
opportunity of spending yet another afternoon in Gladys's company, and
asked her to go with him to an occultist the very next day. When she
assented, the pleasure of it tingled through every pore of his skin.
Of course, Gladys assured herself there was no harm in her acceptance
of Shiel's escort--that neither he nor she meant anything by it--that
it was on her part merely a sort of an acknowledgment that he had been
awfully good to her in her present predicament.
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