Haven Meet that afternoon, with his
hastily repaired machine and a new propeller. But he thought of new
roads for wandering in the land of books, as he sat, tired and sleepy,
but trying to appear bright and appreciative, at the big dinner in his
honor--the first sacrificial banquet to which he had been
subjected--with earnest gentlemen in evening clothes, glad for an
excuse to drink just a little too much champagne; with mayors and
councilmen and bankers; with the inevitable stories about the man who
was accused of stealing umbrellas and about the two skunks on a fence
enviously watching a motor-car.

Equally inevitable were the speeches praising Carl's flight as a
"remarkable achievement, destined to live forever in the annals of
sport and heroism, and to bring one more glory to the name of our fair
city."

Carl tried to appear honored, but he was thinking: "Rats! I'll live in
the annals of nothin'! Curtiss and Brookins and Hoxsey have all made
longer flights than mine, in this country alone, and they're aviators
I'm not worthy to fill the gas-tanks of.... Gee! I'm sleepy! Got to
look polite, but I wish I could beat it.... Let's see. Now look here,
young Carl; starting in to-morrow, you begin to read oodles of books.
Let's see. I'll start out with Forrest's favorites. There's _David
Copperfield_, and that book by Wells, _Tono-Bungay_, that's got aerial
experiments in it, and _Jude the Ob--, Obscure_, I guess it is, and
_The Damnation of Theron Ware_ (wonder what he damned), and
_McTeague_, and _Walden_, and _War and Peace_, and _Madame Bovary_,
and some Turgenev and some Balzac. And something more serious. Guess
I'll try William James's book on psychology."

He bought them all next morning. His other belongings had been suited
to rapid transportation, and Martin Dockerill grumbled, "That's a
swell line of baggage, all right--one tooth-brush, a change of socks,
and ninety-seven thousand books."

Two nights later, in a hotel at Portland, Maine, Carl was plowing
through the Psychology. He hated study. He flipped the pages angrily,
and ran his fingers through his corn-colored hair. But he sped on,
concentrated, stopping only to picture a day when the people who
honored him publicly would also know him in private. Somewhere among
them, he believed, was the girl with whom he could play. He would meet
her at some aero race, and she would welcome him as eagerly as he
welcomed her.... Had he, perhaps, already met her? He w