Amazing Stories — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

667 C'S hard a man cannot dispose of his own daughter,” said Mwres irrelevantly. “You must give me the name and address of the young lady,” said the hypnotist, “and any informa- tion bearing upon the matter. And, by the bye, is there any money in the affair?” Mwres hesitated. “There’s a sum—in fact, a considerable sum—in- vested in the Patent Road Company, From her mother, That’s what makes the thing so exasperat- ing,” “exactly,” said the hypnotist. And he proceeded to cross-examine Mwres on the entire affair. It was a lengthy interview. And meanwhile “Elizebeth Mwres,” as she spelt her name, or “Elizabeth Morris” as a nineteenth-cen- tury person would have put it, was sitting in a quiet waiting-place beneath the great stage upon which the flying-machine from Paris descended. And be- side her sat her slender, handsome lover reading her the poem he had written that morning while on duty upon the stage. When he had finished, they sat for _ atime in silence; and then, as if for their special en- A MANUS DY ae tertainment, the great machine that had come flying through the air from America that morning rushed down out of the sky. At first it was a little oblong ; faint and blue amidst the distant fleecy clouds; and then it grew swiitly large and white, and larger and whiter, until they could see the separate tiers of sails, each hundreds of ‘feet wide, and the lank body they supported, and at last even the swinging seats of the passengers in a ‘dotted row. Although it was falling, it seemed to them to be rushing up the sky, and, over the roof- spaces of the city below, its shadow leapt towards them. They heard the whistling rush of the air about it and its yelling siren, shrill and swelling, to warn those who were on its landing-stage of its ar- rival. And abruptly the note fell down a couple of octaves, and it had passed, and the’ sky was clear and void, and she could turn her sweet eyes again to Denton at her side. Their silence ended; and Denton, speaking in a little language of broken English that was, they fancied, their private possession—though lovers have used such little languages since the world began— told her how they too would leap into the air one morning out of all the obstacles and difficulties about them, and fly to a sunlit city of delight he knew of in Japan, half-way about the world. She loved the dream, but she feared the leap; and she put him off with “Some day, dearest one, some day,” to all his pleading that it might be soon; and at last came a shrilling of whistles, and it was time for him to go back to his duties on the stage. They - parted—as lovers have been wont to part for thou- sands of years. lift, and so came to one of the streets of that latter- day London, all glazed in with glass, from the She walked down a passage to a _ weather, and with incessant moving platforms that went to all parts of the city. And by one of these she returned to her apartments in the Hotel for omen where she lived, the apartments that were in her heart, and the wisdom of all the folly in that light. telephonic communication with all the best lec- — ‘s in the world. But the sunlight of the flying the custom to have a chaperone in the case of mother- less girls of the more prosperous classes. The chap- erone had a visitor that day, a man in green and yellow, with a white face and vivid eyes, who talked amazingly. Among other things, he fell to praising a new historical romance that one of the great pop- ular story-tellers of the day had just put forth, It was, of course, about the spacious times of Queen Victoria ; and the author, among other pleasing novel- ties, made a little argument before each section of the story, in imitation oi the chapter headings of the old-fashioned books; as for example, “How the Cab- men of Pimlico stopped the Victoria Ormnnibuses, and of the Great Fight in Palace Yard,” and “How the Piccadilly Policeman was Slain in the Midst of his Duty.” The man in green and yellow praised this innovation. ‘These pithy sentences,” he said, “are admirable, They show at a glance those headlong, tumultuous times, when men and animals jostled in the filthy streets, and death might wait for one at every corner. Life was life then! How great the world must have seemed then! How marvellous! There were still parts of the world absolutely unex- plored. Nowadays we have almost abolished won- der ; we lead lives so trim and orderly that courage, endurance, faith, all the noble virtues seem fading from mankind,” And so on, taking the girls’ thoughts with him, until the life they led, life in the vast and intricate London of the twenty-second century, a life inter- spersed with soaring excursions to every part of the globe, seemed to them a monotonous misery com- pared with the dedal past. — At first Elizabeth did not join in the conversa- tion, but after.a time the subject became so inter- esting that she made a few shy interpolations. But he scarcely seemed to notice her as he talked. He went on to describe a new method of entertaining people. They were hypnotised, ‘and then suggestions were made to them so skilfully that they seemed to— be living in ancient times again. They played out a little romance in the past as vivid as reality, and when at last they awakened, they remembered all they had been through as though it were a real thing, “It is a thing we have sought to do for years and years,” said the hypnotist. “It is practically an arti- ficial dream. And we know the way at last. Think of all it opens out to us—the enrichment of our ex- perience, the recovery of adventure, the refuge it offers from this sordid, competitive life in which we live! Think!” “And you can do that!” said the chaperone eagerly. “The thing is possible at last,” the hypnotist said. “You may order a dream as you wish,” The chaperone was the first to be hypnotised, and the.dream, she said, was wonderful, when she came — to again, The other two girls, encouraged by her enthusiasm also placed themselves in the hands of the hypnotist and had plunges into the romantic past. No one sug- gested that Elizabeth should try this novel entertain- ment; it was at her own request at last that she was any freedom of choice nor will... . And so the mischief was done. _ ee Sky taken into that land of dreams where there is neither