The idea of a gyro-hat did not come to me all at
once, as some great ideas come to inventors. In fact I may say that but for a
most unpleasant circumstance I might never have thought of gyro-hats at all,
although I had for many years been considering the possibility of utilizing the
waste space in the top of silk hats in some way or other. As a practical hat
dealer and lover of my kind, it had always seemed to me a great economical
waste to have a large vacant space inside the upper portion of top hats, or
high hats, or "stovepipe" hats, as they are variously called. When a
shoe is on, it is full of foot, and when a glove is on, it is full of hand; but
a top hat is not, and never can be, full of head, until such a day as heads
assume a cylindrical shape, perfectly flat on top. And no sensible man ever
expects that day to come.
I had, therefore, spent much of my leisure in
devising methods by which the vacant space above the head in high hats might be
turned to advantage, and my patents ranged all the way from a small filing
cabinet that just occupied the waste space, to an extensible hat rack on the
accordion plan that could be pushed compactly into the top of the hat when the
hat was worn, but could be extended into a hat and coat rack when the hat was
not in use. This device should have been very popular, but I may say that the
public received the idea coldly.
My attention had been for some time drawn away from
this philanthropic work by certain symptoms of uneasiness I noticed in my
daughter Anne, and my wife and I decided after careful consideration that Anne
must be in love, and that her love must be unhappy. Otherwise we could not
account for the strange excitability of our usually imperturbable daughter. As
a practical hat dealer my time has been almost exclusively devoted to hats and,
as a good wife, my companion's attention has been almost exclusively devoted to
her husband, while Anne was usually so calm and self-contained that she did not
take my attention from my hat business at all. But when such a daughter
suddenly develops signs of weeping and sighs and general nervousness, any
father, no matter how devoted to the hat trade, must pay attention.
One of the primary necessities of a dealer in good
hats is calm. An ordinary hat dealer may not need calm. He may buy his hats as
another dealer buys flour, in the bulk, and then trust to advertisements to
sell them; but I am not that kind of hat dealer. Hat dealing is an art with me,
and great art requires calm and peace in order that it may reach its highest
development. When I buy hats I do not think of dozens and dollars. No, indeed,
I think of noses and ears. To be able to buy of a manufacturer a hat that will
make the pug nose and big ears of a man I have never seen seem normal and
beautiful when that man enters my store and buys a hat, requires calm. And no
hatter can have calm in his soul while his daughter is love-sick and unhappy. I
demand happiness about and around me, and I must have it. So I told my wife,
and I told her so most emphatically, and I informed her that Anne must become
happy at once.
Perhaps you can imagine the shock I received when
my wife, after making the necessary inquiries of Anne, informed me that Anne
was indeed in love, and in love with Walsingham Gribbs. It was not because
Walsingham Gribbs had never bought a hat of me that I was shocked. Bad hats are
a common failing of mankind, and a man will try a hundred hatters before he at
last comes to me.
The trouble was deeper than this. The thing that
staggered me was that Walsingham was a staggerer, (This is a joke, but I hold
that a hatter has as good a right to make a joke as the next man.)
That my daughter had fallen in love with
Walsingham Gribbs without having met him was altogether to her credit. She
first saw him when she was crossing the ocean (for she travels where she
pleases, my hat business affording her such pleasures) and that he reeled and
staggered about the boat did not impress her, for it was a stormy trip and
everyone aboard reeled and staggered, even the captain of the boat. But when
she returned to New York and saw Walsingham Gribbs on the firm pavement of
Fifth Avenue, she had a harsh, cruel disillusionment. Walsingham Gribbs reeled
and staggered on terra firma.
I am glad to say that my daughter saw at once the
impossibility of the daughter of a high-class hatter mating with a permanent
staggerer. As she realized this, she became sad and nervous, thus creating an
atmosphere in my home that was quite opposed to the best high-class hatting,
irritating my faculties and threatening to reduce me to the state of a mere
commercial hatter.
Further investigation only made the matter seem
worse, for quiet inquiries brought out the information that Walsingham Gribbs
had been staggering since the year his father died. He had been constantly in a
reeling, staggering state since his twentieth birthday. For such a man reform
is, indeed, impossible. And what made the case more sad was that all proof
seemed to point to the fact that Walsingham Gribbs was not a
"bounder" nor a "rounder," two classes of men who
occasionally acquire a stagger and a reel in company with hearty boon
companions.
In short, no one had ever seen Walsingham Gribbs
take a drink in public, and I was forced to conclude that he was of that horrid
type that drinks alone—"Alone but with unabated zeal" as that great
poet, Sir Walter Scott, has remarked in one of his charming poems.
If all these investigations of mine were conducted
without the knowledge of Walsingham Gribbs, you must admit I did only what was
right in keeping them secret from him; for since he had never met my daughter
he might have considered the efforts of a perfect stranger to peer into his life
as being uncalled for. My wife did what she could to comfort Anne, but Anne
sadly replied that she could never marry a man that staggered and reeled day in
and day out. Thus day by day she became more sad, and I became so upset that I
actually sold a narrow-brimmed derby hat to a man with wide, outstanding ears.
Of course this could not go on. No highgrade hat
business could support it, and I was standing in my shop door looking gloomily
out when I chanced to see Walsingham Gribbs stagger by. I had seen him many
times, but now, for the first time I noticed what I should have noticed
before—that he invariably wore a high hat, or "topper," as our
customers like to call them.
I observed that the shape was awful, and that the
hat badly needed the iron, and then my mind recurred to the old problem of the
vacant space in the top of top hats; but I found I could not concentrate.
Whenever I tried to think of top hats I thought of Walsingham Gribbs in one of
them, staggering and reeling up the street, and gradually the thought came that
it would be an excellent idea should I be able so to use the space in the top
of Walsingham's hat that he would no longer stagger and reel, and then the
thought of the gyroscope hat came to me.
I admit that at first I put the idea aside as
futile, but it came back again and again, and at length it seemed to force me
into enthusiasm. I dropped everything and went to work on the gyro-hat.
The gyroscope is, as everyone knows, a top, and I
might have called the hat I invented a top hat, except that any tall
cylindrical silk or beaver hat is called a top hat, so I was forced to adopt
the name of gyro-hat.
A gyroscope is not an ordinary top. It is like a
heavy fly wheel, revolving on an axle; and if it is spun, the speed of the
revolutions maintains the axle in the perpendicular. A huge gyroscope is used
to steady the channel steamers, which would otherwise stagger and reel. A
gyroscope has been adopted to the monorail cars, and so long as the gyroscope
gyrates the monorail car cannot stagger or reel. If a proper gyroscope was
fastened on the end of a knitting needle and gyrated at full speed, that
knitting needle could be stood on end and it would not fall over.
Therefore, if a gyroscope was placed in the top of
a top hat, and the top hat firmly fastened to the head of a man, and the
gyroscope set going, that man would remain perpendicular in spite of anything.
He could not stagger. He could not reel. He could walk a line as straight as a
crack.
When I had completed this gyro-hat I showed it to
my wife, and briefly explained what it was and what I meant to do with it. The
small but wonderfully powerful motor and the gyroscope itself were all
concealed inside the hat, and I explained to my wife that Walsingham Gribbs
need but fasten the hat firmly on his head and he would never stagger again. At
first my wife seemed doubtful, but as I continued she became more and more
enthusiastic.
The only thing she disliked was the method of
fastening the hat to the head, for as it was quite necessary that the hat be
very firmly fixed to the head, I had sewed ear tabs to the hat, and these I
tied firmly under my chin. My wife said she feared it would require some time
to persuade the public to take to silk hats with ear tabs, and that the sight
of a man in a silk hat with ear tabs would be a sign that he was a staggerer.
She wanted another method of holding the hat on the head.
"Vacuum suction," I said, for I am quick
to catch an idea. A man has to be, in the hat business. "But," I
added, "where would you get the vacuum? A man cannot be expected to carry
a can of vacuum, or whatever he would need to carry a vacuum in, around with
him; especially the kind of man that would need the gyro-hat."
"My dear," said my wife, after a minute
of thought, during which we both studied the gyro-hat, "I have it! Let the
hat make its own vacuum. If the hat is lined with air-tight aluminum, and has a
rubber sweatband, and an expulsion valve, the gyroscope motor could pump the
air out itself. It could create its own vacuum,"
"Of course it could!" I exclaimed.
"I could rig it up so that putting the hat on the head would start the
gyroscope, and the gyroscope would pump a vacuum. All any staggerer would need
to do would be to put on his hat, and the hat would do the rest. It would stay
on his head and it would keep him evenly on his keel." (Of course I would
not use a nautical term like "keel" in my hat shop, but at home I
allow myself some liberties of that sort.)
I set to work at once to perfect the gyro-hat on
the plan suggested by my wife and in a few days I was able to say it was a
success. By this I mean it was a success in-so-far as the eye could judge by
looking at the hat, and all that was needed was a practical trial.
As the hat had been invented for Walsingham Gribbs
more than for any other man, I proposed to my wife that Walsingham—we had
spoken of him so often that we now mentioned him as Walsingham—should be the
man to try it out. But my wife is better posted in social matters than I, and
she said it would not do at all to attempt such a thing.
In the first place, none of us knew Walsingham;
and in all other places, it would be insulting to suggest such a thing to him,
and might ruin Anne's chances. I then assured my wife that I did not mean to
allow any ordinary intoxicated man to experiment with the only gyro-hat I possessed,
and possibly wreck and ruin it. We had too much at stake for that. So, after
considerable discussion, my wife and I decided upon what was, after all, the
only rational course—I should try out the gyro-hat myself.
I admit here that I am not much of a drinker.
Although not so by principle, I am by action a teetotaller. I consider that the
highest good of a hat shop demands it. As a matter of fact I had never up to
this time tasted intoxicating liquor, but it was evident to my wife and me that
the time had arrived when the hat business demanded this sacrifice on my part.
Evidently, if a gyro-hat is meant to keep a staggerer and reeler steady on his
keel, the only test of the gyro-hat must be on the head of a man who, without
the hat, could not help staggering and reeling—a thoroughly intoxicated man.
We did not, of course, admit Anne into our little
conspiracy, and we chose a restaurant where we were sure intoxicants would he
sold. We proceeded to the restaurant about the dinner hour; and after studying
the waiters carefully, I selected one that seemed likely to know something
about intoxicants, and we seated ourselves at his table. I placed the gyro-hat
carefully across my knees, first setting the starter, and beckoned the waiter
to us.
"My good fellow," I said, when he had
approached with his pencil and order card in hand, "I desire to become
intoxicated this evening, and I presume you know something about intoxicating
liquors."
"Yes, sir," said the waiter,
"Tell him, Henry," said my wife,
"that we also wish something to eat, but that as our principal object in
coming here is to secure intoxicants, we wish him to be particular about
them."
"You have heard what the lady said," I
told the waiter, "and you will be guided accordingly."
"Yes, sir," said the waiter, politely.
"Does the lady desire to become intoxicated also?"
"Heavens, no!" exclaimed my wife.
"Certainly not," said the waiter.
"Now," I said to the waiter, "you
doubtless have different kinds of intoxicating liquors here—some strong and
some not so strong—and I do not desire to drink a great quantity to obtain the
result I desire. What would you recommend to give the required reeling and
staggering condition as quickly as possible?"
"Well, sir," he said, "if you will
let me advise, I would advise a certain brandy we have. Of that brandy, sir, a
little goes a long way. I have seen it work, sir, and I can assure you that a
small quantity of that will make you stagger and reel to your heart's
content."
"Very well," I said, "you may bring
me some. I suppose a quart would be enough."
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said,
"but have you ever tried the brandy of which I speak?"
"I have not," I said,
"Then, sir," said the waiter
apologetically, "unless you are a very heavy drinker I would not advise a
quart of that brandy. A quart of that brandy, sir, would, if I may so speak,
lay you out flat. You would not reel and stagger, sir. You would be paralyzed
stiff, sir, dead to the world."
I thanked the waiter warmly.
"You observe," I said, "that I am
not used to this sort of thing, and I appreciate the interest you are taking. I
am inclined to leave the matter entirely in your hands. I may not know when I
have had exactly the right quantity, but you, with your larger experience, will
know, sir."
"Yes, sir. And I think the lady will know,
sir," said the waiter.
I found the brandy most unpleasant to the taste,
but certain symptoms assured me that the waiter had not belied its
effectiveness. Long before the waiter was satisfied that I would stagger and
reel, my long lost vocal prowess returned and I caroled gaily some songs that
had been favorites of my youth. Many of these were affectionate songs, and when
I sang them I had a great longing to hold my wife's hand, and did so; but as
she would not let me kiss her, I felt the need of kissing the waiter. Here
again I was repulsed, but it did not make me angry, I merely slid down into my
chair and waved my hand at him coquettishly.
"If you please, sir," said the waiter,
when I had finished another burst of song, "I think you are pretty ripe,
now. If you would just get up and walk a few steps I can tell more
definitely."
My wife smiled at me reassuringly and nodded to me
that what the waiter proposed had her full sanction; but even so, I was filled
with a fear that we were about to be parted forever, and for a few minutes I
clung to her neck, weeping bitter tears. I then tore myself away, and I did
indeed stagger and reel, I believe I knocked over two small tables and ended by
seating myself in the lap of a young man who was dining alone. He accepted my
apology before I had spoken more than fifteen minutes of it, and then he aided
the waiter in steering me back to my table.
Whatever may have been my past opinion of
Walsingham Gribbs—for it was he—I loved him most dearly at that moment, and in
my incoherent manner I tried to tell him so, I think he understood. At any
rate, he spoke to my wife like a true gentleman.
"Madame," he said, "I can sincerely
sympathize with your husband, and if you will allow me, I will gladly help you
assist him to a cab. I beg you not to be frightened by his condition. I myself
am subject to the same trouble, and although he may seem drunk——"
"Seem drunk!" exclaimed my wife.
"Seem drunk! I beg you to know that my husband is as drunk as a man can
become without being senseless. Either that, or we have been defrauded by this
waiter!"
Walsingham Gribbs looked at my wife, and then
smiled.
"Very well," he said, "if what you
wanted was to have him drunk, I'll admit that he is about the drunkest man I
have ever seen. I only spoke as I did in order that I might spare your
feelings, for most wives object to seeing their husbands stagger and reel. I
myself stagger and reel continually, and I have never tasted intoxicating
liquor in my life, but I can share the feelings of one who staggers and reels,
or who has a relative that staggers and reels."
At this my wife said:
"Are you not Walsingham Gribbs? If you are I
am delighted to meet you, even in this unconventional manner, for what brought
us here will interest you."
She then told him of the gyro-hat I had invented,
and explained just why I had come to this place and had swallowed the strong
brandy. I took no part in this conversation, but Walsingham gladly agreed to
accompany us, and he put my gyro-hat on my head.
The result was indeed marvelous. Instantly the
vacuum pump began to work and the gyroscope to revolve. My head, which had been
lying on one side, straightened up. The rubber sweat band gripped my head
tightly with a slight pulling sensation. Without assistance I arose from my
chair and stood erect. My brain was still confused, but I walked as straight as
a string direct to the door of the restaurant, and stood holding it open while
my wife passed out with the ever staggering Walsingham.
The gyroscope was revolving at the rate of three
thousand revolutions a minute, and the slight humming was hardly noticeable. I
did not stagger and I did not reel. When I reached Gramercy Park I was full of
glee. I had been walking on the edge of the curb, but I now desired to climb
atop of the iron fence that surrounds the park, and walk on the points of the
pickets.
My wife and Walsingham tried to dissuade me, but I
climbed to the top of the fence. I not only walked on the points of the pickets
easily, but I was able to place the end of one toe on the point of one picket,
and thus balanced, wave the other leg in the air. My wife and Walsingham Gribbs
coaxed me to come down to the level of the walk, but as I saw no reason to do
so, I flatly refused, and at last Walsingham reached up and took me by the hand
and pulled me.
Ordinarily a man that had imbibed a quantity of
brandy would have fallen to the street if pulled by one hand while standing on
the top of a row of pickets, but I did not. When Walsingham pulled my hand I
inclined gently toward him until I was at right angles to the picket fence,
with my foot still on top of the picket; and when he released my hand I slowly
swung upright again, without any effort whatever on my part. I got down off
that fence when I was ready, and not before.
There could be no doubt whatever that I was far
more intoxicated than Walsingham Gribbs, and all the way home I gave vent to
tremendous bursts of laughter over the idea that while Walsingham thought he
was seeing me safely home I walked as straight and true as a general, and he
staggered and reeled except when he clung closely to my arm.
Many persons stopped and looked at us, and I
cannot wonder at it. For Walsingham is a young man of most dignified
countenance, and it must have seemed strange to see a young man of such sober
mien reeling drunkenly, while a dignified and steadily walking hatter laughed
and shouted drunkenly. It was as if the two of us had been able to afford but
one spree, and had divided it in that way, he taking the stagger and I taking
the boisterousness.
My wife was much touched by the kind attentions of
Walsingham, and when we reached home she invited him in, and while I found a
little harmless amusement in walking up the stairbanisters and sliding down
them standing on my feet, which I was enabled to do because of the steadying
effect of the gyro-hat, she took Walsingham into the parlor and introduced him
to Anne formally.
My poor daughter was quite overcome with
embarrassment and pleasure, but when Walsingham was sitting he showed no
evidence of his stagger and reel whatever, and they managed to become quite
well acquainted while my wife was assisting me to bed.
Unfortunately I had neglected to arrange any
method for letting the vacuum out of the gyro-hat, and although my wife tugged
and pulled at the hat, the suction held it fast to my head and it refused to
come off unless my scalp came with it. My wife decided that I must sleep in the
hat, since I was in no condition of mind to do anything about it myself.
I was dying for sleep, and my wife tumbled me into
bed and pulled the sheet over me, and that same instant I fell into a heavy
slumber, but the moment my wife released her grasp on me I began arising to my
feet, irresistibly drawn to the perpendicular by the action of the gyro-hat. I
continued to arise until I was standing upright. I can only liken the manner in
which I arose to the way a man might raise a stiff arm slowly until it pointed
straight upward.
My wife immediately pushed me down onto the pillow
again, but it was unavailing. Again the gyro-hat drew me to a standing
position, and my wife was forced to let me continue my night's rest in that
position.
The next morning I did not feel very well, but I
never saw my wife in better spirits. She told me she was sure Walsingham had
taken a great fancy to Anne, for he had asked permission to call again that
evening, and my wife said that in her opinion it would be well to take up the
matter of the marriage with Walsingham at once, before it went any further. If
he meant business he would be glad to wear the hat and be rid of his stagger
and reel; and if he meant nothing it would be a good thing to know it, and the
sooner we were rid of him the better. I agreed with her fully, but I spent the day
perfecting the vacuum outlet on the hat.
I must admit that Walsingham seemed somewhat
surprised when I made the suggestion to him that evening. For a few minutes he
did not seem to know what to say. Perhaps it was a little overcoming to have
the parents of Anne suggest the idea of a marriage in this offhand manner and
at the same time propose the wearing of a gyro-hat; but Walsingham was a
gentleman, and when he glanced up, after his first surprise, and saw Anne
gazing at him appealingly, with her hands clasped, I could see that love had
won. But instead of acquiescing immediately, Walsingham Gribbs took one of
Anne's hands in his, and after patting it, spoke directly, to me.
"Sir," he said, "I cannot but
appreciate the delicate manner in which you have handled this matter, but if I
am only too glad to find that there is a hat that will correct my unfortunate
staggering and reeling, and if I am to accept your offer of that hat, I feel it
due to myself to assure you that liquor has nothing whatever to do with my
staggering and reeling. I am the victim of an unfortunate experience of my
youthful days.
"My father was a man of many ideas, and
always trying to make the world better. He had a neighbor that had a mule. It
was a mouse-colored mule and very stubborn, and it used to wring my father's
heart to see the neighbor belabor that mule with a heavy whip, trying to make
the mule proceed in a direction in which it did not wish to go. The mule was
quite willing to go toward the barn, where the feed was kept; but it often
refused to go in the opposite direction, although it would go well enough if it
once started.
"My father, therefore, conceived the idea of
what he called the Gribbs Mule Reverser. This was a circular platform large
enough to hold a mule and his loaded wagon, and beneath the platform was a
motor capable of revolving the platform. All that was necessary was to place
the mule and the wagon on the platform and start the mule in the direction of
home, and then suddenly turn the platform in the direction the mule was desired
to go, and the mule would proceed, unwittingly in that direction."
"A very excellent idea," I said.
"Except that it would not work in the
least," said Walsingham. "In the first place, it was necessary to dig
a pit five feet square beneath the revolving platform to contain the motor, and
this was not always convenient. In the second place, the platform and motor
would hardly ever happen to be where the mule balked, and it would have been a
great deal easier to load the mule on a wagon than to load the platform and
motor on three wagons. And in the third place, if the mule would not start
homeward, neither would it start towards the platform of the Mule Reverser.
"So, after my father had tried the platform
in our back yard, with a mule on it, and the revolutions had thrown the mule up
against the side of the barn, breaking both the mule and the barn, he decided
that other things were better to invent and abandoned the platform. I and the
lads of the neighborhood found this a good place to play, and one day I was
standing exactly in the center of the platform when one of the boys happened to
start the motor, I had sense enough to remain exactly in the center of the
platform, or I would have been thrown off, and possibly killed, for the
platform was revolving at the rate of eight-thousand revolutions a minute. The
motor had power to revolve the platform slowly when loaded with a mule and
loaded wagon, so it was capable of immense speed with only a small boy on it.
"When my companions saw what they had
done," continued Walsingham, "they all ran away, and for four hours I
remained in the center of that platform, being revolved at an enormous speed,
and when my father came home and stopped the platform I staggered and reeled
and fell in a heap at his feet. That is how I acquired my unfortunate stagger
and unpleasant reel, and I have only told you this that you may have no unjust
suspicions."
"But why," asked my wife, who had been
greatly interested by Walsingham's story, "do you not revolve in the
opposite direction, and 'unwind' yourself as we used to say?"
"Madame," said Walsingham, "I have.
Every night, for one hour before I go to bed I revolve, but it requires an
immense number of revolutions to overcome such a spin as I had in my
youth." He waited a moment and then said: "But I am now ready to try
the gyro-hat."
I looked out of the window, and hesitated. A thin
rain was falling and was freezing as it fell, and I hated to have a good, silk,
gyro-hat go out into such weather; but as a leading hatter I felt that it would
never do for me to seem small and picayunish in regard to hats. I remembered
that a really good silk hat would not be ruined by a few drops of water; and I
saw that if anything could convince Anne and Walsingham that the gyro-hat held
their happiness, it would be a trial on such slippery walks as the evening had
provided.
So I brought down the hat and pressed it on
Walsingham's head. Instantly the vacuum creator began to work and the hat clung
fast to his head. He arose to his feet and walked across the parlor in a
perfectly steady manner, and out into the hall. I held open the front door and
he stepped out.
Walsingham crossed the porch with as steady a
tread as ever any man crossed the porch of a high-class hatter, but when he
reached the top step his foot struck the ice and he slipped. He did not stagger
nor reel. If he fell, he fell steadily. I can best liken his fall to the action
of a limber reed when the wind strikes it. He inclined slowly, with his feet
still on the top step, and continued to incline until his head touched the walk
below with considerable violence; then his feet slipped down the edges of the
steps until they rested on the walk.
I never saw a more graceful fall, and I was about
to congratulate Walsingham, when he began to incline toward the perpendicular
again, in the same slow manner. But this was not the reason I held my words,
the reason was that the gyro-hat and Walsingham were behaving in a most
unaccountable manner. Walsingham was revolving.
I discovered later that the fall had jammed the
gyroscope on the pivot so that the gyroscope could not revolve without
revolving the whole hat, and as the hat was firmly suctioned to Walsingham, the
hat could not revolve without revolving Walsingham. For an instant Walsingham
revolved away from us down the walk, and Anne gave a great cry; but almost at
that moment Walsingham regained the upright and began to revolve rapidly. The
icy walk offered no purchase for his feet, and this was indeed lucky; for if it
had, his head would have continued to revolve none the less, and the effect
would have been fatal.
I estimated that Walsingham was revolving at a
rate of perhaps fifteen hundred revolutions a minute, and it was some minutes
before my wife was able so far to recover from the shock of seeing her
prospective son-in-law whirl thus as to ask me to stop him. My first impulse
was to do so, but my long training as a hatter had made me a careful,
thoughtful man, and I gently pushed my wife back.
"My dear," I said, "let us pause
and consider this case. Here we have Walsingham revolving rapidly. He is
revolving in one of the only two directions in which he can revolve—the
direction in which he revolved on the Mule Reverser, or the opposite direction.
If it is the opposite direction all is well, for he will be unwound in a few
hours, if his neck is not wrung in the meantime. If it is in the same direction
it is no use to stop him now, for by this time he will be in such a condition
of reeling and staggering that we would not have him as a son-in-law on any
terms, I propose, therefore, to let him spin here for a few hours, when he will
have had a full recovery or be permanently too dizzy for any use."
My wife, and Anne too, saw the wisdom of this
course, and as it was very miserable weather outside we all withdrew to my
parlor, from the window of which we could watch Walsingham revolve.
Occasionally, when he seemed about to revolve off the walk, I went out and
pushed him on again.
I figured that by six o'clock in the morning he
would be sufficiently revolved—provided he was revolving in the right
direction—and at midnight I sent my wife and Anne to bed. I fear Anne slept but
little that night, for she must have had a lover's natural anxiety as to how
all was to turn out.
At six the next morning Anne, my wife, and I all
went into the yard to stop Walsingham. Then it came to me that I had no way of
stopping him. To add to my dismay I knew that when the sun arose the thin ice
would melt, and as Walsingham's feet could no longer slip easily, he would in
all probability be wrenched in two, a most unsatisfactory condition for a
son-in-law.
But while I was standing in dismay, love found a
way, as love always will, and Anne rushed to the cellar and brought out the
stepladder and the ice pick. Placing the stepladder close to Walsingham she
climbed it, and holding the point of the ice pick at the exact center of the
top of the hat she pushed down. A sizzling noise told us that she had bored a hole
in the hat, letting the vacuum escape, and the hat flew from Walsingham's head.
Slower and slower he revolved, until he stood
quite still, and then, without a reel or a stagger he walked up to me and
grasped my hand, while tears told me the thanks he could not utter. He had
revolved in the right direction! He was cured!
The End
