he said, directly. And
then I put my arms around him, and found that I could raise him from
the ground.

"Are you lifting me?" he exclaimed, in surprise.

"Yes; I did it with ease," I answered.

"Upon--my--word!" ejaculated Mr. Gilbert.

I then gave the screw a half-turn more, and told him to walk and
run. He started off, at first slowly, then he made long strides,
then he began to run, and then to skip and jump. It had been many
years since Mr. Gilbert had skipped and jumped. No one was in sight,
and he was free to gambol as much as he pleased. "Could you give it
another turn?" said he, bounding up to me. "I want to try that
wall." I put on a little more negative gravity, and he vaulted over
a five-foot wall with great ease. In an instant he had leaped back
into the road, and in two bounds was at my side. "I came down as
light as a cat," he said. "There was never anything like it." And
away he went up the road, taking steps at least eight feet long,
leaving my wife and me laughing heartily at the preternatural
agility of our stout friend. In a few minutes he was with us again.
"Take it off," he said. "If I wear it any longer I shall want one
myself, and then I shall be taken for a crazy man, and perhaps
clapped into an asylum."

"Now," said I, as I turned back the screw before unstrapping the
knapsack, "do you understand how I took long walks, and leaped and
jumped; how I ran uphill and downhill, and how the little donkey
drew the loaded wagon?"

"I understand it all," cried he. "I take back all I ever said or
thought about you, my friend."

"And Herbert may marry Janet?" cried my wife.

"_May_ marry her!" cried Mr. Gilbert. "Indeed, he _shall_ marry her,
if I have anything to say about it! My poor girl has been drooping
ever since I told her it could not be."

My wife rushed at him, but whether she embraced him or only shook
his hands I cannot say; for I had the knapsack in one hand and was
rubbing my eyes with the other.

"But, my dear fellow," said Mr. Gilbert, directly, "if you still
consider it to your interest to keep your invention a secret, I wish
you had never made it. No one having a machine like that can help
using it, and it is often quite as bad to be considered a maniac as
to be one."

"My friend," I cried, with some excitement, "I have made up my mind
on this subject. The little machine in this knapsack, which is the
only one I now possess, has been a great pleasure to me. But I now
know