have burst into flames. Almost certainly we should have burst into

flames! You know we had neither of us thought of that. . . . But

before we could even begin to run the action of the drug had ceased.

It was the business of a minute fraction of a second. The effect of

the New Accelerator passed like the drawing of a curtain, vanished in

the movement of a hand. I heard Gibberne's voice in infinite alarm.

"Sit down," he said, and flop, down upon the turf at the edge of the

Leas I sat--scorching as I sat. There is a patch of burnt grass

there still where I sat down. The whole stagnation seemed to wake

up as I did so, the disarticulated vibration of the band rushed

together into a blast of music, the promenaders put their feet down

and walked their ways, the papers and flags began flapping, smiles

passed into words, the winker finished his wink and went on his

way complacently, and all the seated people moved and spoke.



The whole world had come alive again, was going as fast as we were,

or rather we were going no faster than the rest of the world. It was

like slowing down as one comes into a railway station. Everything

seemed to spin round for a second or two, I had the most transient

feeling of nausea, and that was all. And the little dog which had

seemed to hang for a moment when the force of Gibberne's arm was

expended fell with a swift acceleration clean through a lady's parasol!



That was the saving of us. Unless it was for one corpulent old

gentleman in a bath-chair, who certainly did start at the sight of

us and afterwards regarded us at intervals with a darkly suspicious

eye, and, finally, I believe, said something to his nurse about us,

I doubt if a solitary person remarked our sudden appearance among

them. Plop! We must have appeared abruptly. We ceased to smoulder

almost at once, though the turf beneath me was uncomfortably hot. The

attention of every one--including even the Amusements' Association

band, which on this occasion, for the only time in its history,

got out of tune--was arrested by the amazing fact, and the still

more amazing yapping and uproar caused by the fact that a respectable,

over-fed lap-dog sleeping quietly to the east of the bandstand

should suddenly fall through the parasol of a lady on the west--in

a slightly singed condition due to the extreme velocity of its

movements through the air. In these absurd days, too, when we are

all trying to be as psychic, and silly, and superstitious as possible!

People got up and trod on other people, chairs were overturned,

the Leas policeman ran. How the matter settled itself I do not

know--we were much too anxious to disentangle ourselves from

the affair and get out of range of the eye of the old gentleman

in the bath-chair to make minute inquiries. As soon as we were

sufficiently cool and sufficiently recovered from our giddiness

and nausea and confusion of mind to do so we stood up and, skirting

the crowd, directed our steps back along the road below the Metropole

towards Gibberne's house. But amidst the din I heard very distinctly

the gentleman who had been sitting beside the lady of the ruptured

sunshade using quite unjustifiable threats and language to one of



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