e
holding a flag on a windy day.

"That table," he said, pointing, "is solid mahogany and very heavy. If
you can put me under that---"

I did, and there he wallowed about like a captive balloon, while I stood
on his hearthrug and talked to him.

I lit a cigar. "Tell me," I said, "what happened?"

"I took it," he said.

"How did it taste?"

"Oh, BEASTLY!"

I should fancy they all did. Whether one regards the ingredients or
the probable compound or the possible results, almost all of my
great-grandmother's remedies appear to me at least to be extraordinarily
uninviting. For my own part--

"I took a little sip first."

"Yes?"

"And as I felt lighter and better after an hour, I decided to take the
draught."

"My dear Pyecraft!"

"I held my nose," he explained. "And then I kept on getting lighter and
lighter--and helpless, you know."

He gave way to a sudden burst of passion. "What the goodness am I to
DO?" he said.

"There's one thing pretty evident," I said, "that you mustn't do. If you
go out of doors, you'll go up and up." I waved an arm upward. "They'd
have to send Santos-Dumont after you to bring you down again."

"I suppose it will wear off?"

I shook my head. "I don't think you can count on that," I said.

And then there was another burst of passion, and he kicked out at
adjacent chairs and banged the floor. He behaved just as I should
have expected a great, fat, self-indulgent man to behave under trying
circumstances--that is to say, very badly. He spoke of me and my
great-grandmother with an utter want of discretion.

"I never asked you to take the stuff," I said.

And generously disregarding the insults he was putting upon me, I sat
down in his armchair and began to talk to him in a sober, friendly
fashion.

I pointed out to him that this was a trouble he had brought upon
himself, and that it had almost an air of poetical justice. He had eaten
too much. This he disputed, and for a time we argued the point.

He became noisy and violent, so I desisted from this aspect of his
lesson. "And then," said I, "you committed the sin of euphuism. You
called it not Fat, which is just and inglorious, but Weight. You--"

He interrupted to say he recognised all that. What was he to DO?

I suggested he should adapt himself to his new conditions. So we came to
the really sensible part of the business. I suggested that it would
not be difficult for him to learn to walk about on the ceiling with his