Highflyers

Excerpt: "Fred la Mothe was speaking. After a certain number of beverages composed of Scotch whisky, imported soda, and a cube of ice, it was a matter of comparative ease for him to exhibit a notable fluency. After two o’clock in the afternoon Fred was generally fluent. “‘’Tain’t safe,’ I says to him. And the wind was blowin’ enough to lift the hair out of your head. ‘I wouldn’t go up in the thing for the price of it,’ I says, ‘and, besides, you’re seein’ two of it. Bad enough drivin’ a car when you’re lit up,’ I says, ‘but what these flyin’ machines want is a still day and a man that’s cold sober. You just let it rest on its little perch in the bird-cage.’” Fred refreshed his parched throat while his four companions waited for the conclusion of the tale. “‘You’ll bust your neck,’ I told him. “‘Ten to one,’ says he, ‘I round Windmill Point Light and come back without bustin’ my neck. Even money I make it without bustin’ anything,’ says he. “‘Dinner for four at the Tuller to-night that the least you bust is a leg,’ I says, and the wind whipped the hat off my head and whirled it into a tree.” Fred stopped, evidently mourning the loss of his hat."