ture of a man coolly studying an
interesting phenomenon.

My brother appeared to be aroused by the shock, struggling about in
his embedment, and finally sat up. Up? _Down_, I mean. Then he
_stood_, _on the ceiling_, and began to walk! His nose had been
bruised by the impact, and I noticed with uncomprehending wonder that
the blood moved slowly _upward_ over his lip. He saw the window, and
walked across the ceiling to it upside down. There he pushed the top
of the window down and leaned out, gazing up into the sky with some
sort of fascination. Instantly he crouched on the ceiling, hiding his
eyes, while the house rang with shriek after shriek of mortal terror,
speeding the packing of the parting guests. Alice seized my arm, her
fingers cutting painfully into the flesh.

"Jim," she screamed. "I see it now--don't you? His gravity's all
changed around--he weighs _up_! He thinks the sky's _under_ him!"

The human mind is so constructed that merely to name a thing oddly
smooths its unwonted outlines to the grasp of the mind; the conception
of a simple reversal of my brother's weight, I think, saved us all
from the padded cell. That made it so commonplace, such an everyday
sort of thing, likely to happen to anybody. The ordinary phenomenon of
gravitation is no whit more mysterious, in all truth, than that which
we were now witnessing--but we are born to _it_!

* * * * *

Dr. Grosnoff recovered in a manner which showed considerable caliber.

"Well," he grunted, "that being the case, we'd best be looking after
him. Nervous shock, possible electric shock and electric burns,
psychasthenia--that's going to be a long-drawn affair--bruises, maybe
a little concussion, and possibly internal injury--that was equivalent
to a ten-foot unbroken fall flat on his stomach, and I'll never
forgive myself if.... Get me a chair!"

With infinite care and reassuring words, the big doctor with our help
pulled my brother down, the latter frantically begging us not to let
him "fall" again. Holding him securely on the bed and trying to
reassure him, Grosnoff said:

"Straps and ropes won't do. His whole weight hangs in them--they'll
cut him unmercifully. Take a sheet, tie the corners with ropes, and
let him lie in that like a hammock!"

It took many reassurances as to the strength of this arrangement
before Tristan was at comparative peace. Dr. Grosnoff effected an
examination by slacking off the ropes until Tr