He told me his name, his
address; he begged we should meet again; finally he proposed that I
should dine with him in the country at an early date.
'The dinner is official,' he explained. 'The office-bearers and
Senatus of the University of Cramond--an educational institution in
which I have the honour to be Professor of Nonsense--meet to do
honour to our friend Icarus, at the old-established howff, Cramond
Bridge. One place is vacant, fascinating stranger,--I offer it to
you!'
'And who is your friend Icarus?' I asked,
'The aspiring son of Daedalus!' said he. 'Is it possible that you
have never heard the name of Byfield?'
'Possible and true,' said I.
'And is fame so small a thing?' cried he. 'Byfield, sir, is an
aeronaut. He apes the fame of a Lunardi, and is on the point of
offering to the inhabitants--I beg your pardon, to the nobility and
gentry of our neighbourhood--the spectacle of an ascension. As one
of the gentry concerned I may be permitted to remark that I am
unmoved. I care not a Tinker's Damn for his ascension. No more--I
breathe it in your ear--does anybody else. The business is stale,
sir, stale. Lunardi did it, and overdid it. A whimsical,
fiddling, vain fellow, by all accounts--for I was at that time
rocking in my cradle. But once was enough.
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