ards of notoriety, why couldn't it have been in some
decent, human sort of way? Why this ghastly absurdity?"

"From time immemorial," said Grosnoff, "there have been men who sought
to excite the admiration of their fellows, to get themselves
worshiped, to dominate, to collect perquisites, by developing some
wonderful personal power or another. From Icarus on down, levitation
or its equivalent has been a favorite. The ecstatics of medieval
times, the Hindu Yogis, even the day-dreaming schoolboy, have had
visions of floating in air before the astounding multitudes by a mere
act of will. The frequency of 'flying dreams' may indicate such a
thing as a possibility in nature. Tradition says many have
accomplished it. If so, it was by a reversal of polarity through _an
act of will_. Those who did it--Yogis--believed in successive lives on
earth. If they were right about the one, why not the other? Suppose
one who had developed that power of will, carried it to another birth,
where it lay dormant in the subconscious until set off uncontrolled by
some special shock?"

Alice paled.

"Then Tristan might have been--"

"He might. Then again, maybe my brain is addled by this thing. In any
case, the moral is: don't monkey with Nature! She's particular."

* * * * *

Tristan's vaudeville scheme was not as easily realized as said. The
first manager to whom we applied was stubbornly skeptical in spite of
Tristan's appearance standing upside down in stilts heavily weighted
at the ground ends; and even after his resistance was broken down in a
manner which left him gasping and a little woozy, began to reason
unfavorably in a hard-headed way. Audiences, he explained, were off
levitation acts. Too old. No matter what you did, they'd lay it to
concealed wires, and yawn. Even if you called a committee from the
audience, the committee itself would merely be sore at not being able
to solve the trick; the audience would consider the committee a fake
or merely dumb. And all that would take too much time for an act of
that kind.

"Oh, yeh, I know! It's got me goin', all right. But I can't think like
me about this sorta thing. I got to think like the audience does--or
go outa business!"

After which solid but unprofitable lesson in psychology, we dropped
the last vestige of pride and tried a circus sideshow. But the results
were similar.

"Nah, the rubes don't wear celluloid collars any more. Ya can't slip