tempting to fly? Had he not shown that human flight
was contrary, not only to immutable natural laws, but to the moral law
as well? For over five thousand years men had lived upon this planet,
and if the Creator had intended his children to fly, would he not have
provided wings for them?

[Illustration: "Toys!" "Mere circus tricks to take in fools!"]

It did not shake the old Captain in the least when accounts of
flying-machines--with pictures--began to appear in the newspapers and
magazines. He passed grandly over them with a snort. "Toys!" "Mere
circus tricks to take in fools!" And if pressed a little too hard, and
there were those who delighted in slyly prodding the Captain with
innocent remarks about flying-machines, until it had become not a little
of a town joke, he would clear the air with an explosive "Fudge!" and go
calmly about his business.

When the supreme test came, and we credulous ones all rushed out of the
office, and craned our necks, and searched the ancient sky for the
miracle, the old Captain stood staunchly by his faith. It couldn't be
so, therefore it wasn't--a doctrine which, I am convinced, leads to much
satisfaction and comfort in this world. The old Captain was, upon the
whole, a happy man.

The _Star_, therefore, remained oblivious to the most interesting event
that had taken place in Hempfield for many a day.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXVI

THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL

Nevertheless, the flying-machine episode played its part in the history
of the _Star_. Facts are like that. We refuse quite disdainfully to
recognize them, even crying "Fudge!" and "Nonsense!" and decline to put
them in the _Star_, or the _Sun_, or the _World_, or even in the sober
_Journal of the Society for the Enlargement of Human Heads_, but they
don't mind. They circle around us, with the sunshine flashing on their
wings, and all the simple and credulous people gaping up at them, and
they don't in the least care for our excellent platforms, constitutions,
and Bibles.

It was the flying-machine incident which was the immediate cause of the
return of Norton Carr. It was foreordained and likewise predestined that
he should return, but there had to be some proximate event. And what
better than a wandering flying-machine?

It was on a Sunday in May, such a perfect still morning as seems to come
only at that moment of the spring, and upon Sunday. I was sitting here
at my desk at the open window, busily writin