5 - The Olympian Links - Page 2

about the wings?" I asked.

"They're much more exhilarating, but a little dangerous if you don't
know how to use them," Adonis replied. "Flying isn't any easier than
roller-skating, and if you upset and get your head below your feet
it's extremely difficult to right yourself again. If you try to go out
there with ankle-wings, take my advice and wear a pair of small
balloons about your chest to hold you right-end upward."

"I'll remember," said I, somewhat awed at the prospect of trying to
walk through space with the aid of ankle-wings. "And how about the
bicycle?" I added.

"If you can ride a bicycle on an ordinary road you'll have no
trouble," he replied. "Keep your tires well filled with gas and avoid
headers. If I were you, though, at first I'd go out on the automobile.
It makes six round trips a day and it's absolutely safe. Being so high
up in the air might make you dizzy, and you might find the bicycling
too much for your nerves. After a little while you'll get used to
enormous heights, and then, of course, you can go any old way you
choose. The fare for the round trip is only fifteen hundred dollars."

"The automobile is in competent hands, eh?"

"Yes," said Adonis. "Phaeton has charge of it."

"Humph!" I sneered. "He's your idea of a competent driver, eh? He
hasn't that reputation on earth. Was it an untruth that credits him
with a fine smash-up when he tried to drive the chariot of the sun?"

"Not a bit of it," said Adonis. "That's all of it simple truth. I
happen to know, because I saw the finish of the whole thing myself,
and was one of the fellows who turned a fire-extinguisher on him and

saved him from being a total loss to the insurance companies. But he
learned his lesson. There's nothing like experience to teach caution,
and that little episode gave Phaeton caution to burn, if I may indulge
in mundane slang. He was guyed so unmercifully by everybody for his
carelessness that the first thing he did when he recovered was to
learn how to drive, and it wasn't six cycles before he was the most
expert whip in Olympus. He finally made a profession of it and
established a livery-stable. Then, when the automobile came in and
horses went out of fashion, he kept up with the times, and is to-day
in charge of all our rapid transit--he owns the franchises for the
Jupiter and Dipper Trolley Road, he is the largest stockholder in the
Metropolitan Traction Company of Neptune, Saturn, and Venus, and is
said to be the moving spirit back of the new underground electric in
Hades."

"I guess he'll do," said I, reflecting with admiration