11 - A Royal Outing - Page 2

and exquisite woods.

"To the links," said Mercury, and with a sudden chug-chug, and a jerk
which nearly threw me out of the conveyance, we were off. And what a
ride it was! At first the sensation was that of falling, and I
clutched nervously at the sides of the skitomobile, but by slow
degrees I got used to it, and enjoyed one of the most exhilarating
hours that has ever entered into my experience.

Planet after planet was passed as we sped on and on upward, and as my
delight grew I gave utterance to it.

"Jove! But this is fine!" I said. "I never knew anything like it,
except looping the loop."

Phaeton grinned broadly and winked at Jason.

"How would you like to loop the loop out here?" the latter asked.

"What? In a machine like this?" I cried.

"Certainly," said Jason. "It's great sport. Give him the twist,
Phaeton."

I began to grow anxious again, for I recalled the past careless
methods of Phaeton, and I had no wish to go looping the loop through
the empyrean with one of his known adventurous disposition, to be
hurled unceremoniously sooner or later perhaps into the sun itself.

"Perhaps we'd better leave it until some other day," I ventured,
timidly.

"No time like the present," Jason retorted. "Only hang on to yourself.
All ready, Phaety!"

The chauffeur grasped the lever, and, turning it swiftly to one side,
there in the blue vault of heaven, a thousand miles from anywhere,
that machine began executing the most remarkable flip-flaps the mind
of man ever conceived. Not once or twice, but a hundred times did we
go whirling round and round through the skies, until finally I got so
that I could not tell if I were right side up or upside down. It was
great sport, however, and but for the fact that on the third trial I
lost my grip and would have fallen head over heels through space had
not Mercury, who was flying alongside of the machine, swooped down and
caught me by the leg as I fell out, I found it as exhilarating as it
was novel. I could have kept it up forever, had we not shortly hove in
sight of the links, which, as I have already told you, were located on
the planet Mars; and such gorgeousness as I there encountered was
unparalleled on earth. Much that we earth-folk have wondered at became
clear at once. The great canals, as we call them, for instance, turned
out to be vast sand-bunkers that glistened like broad rivers of silver
in the wondrous sheen of the planet, while the dark greenish spots,
concerning which our astronomers have speculated so variously, were
nothing more nor less than putting-greens. It is extraordinary that
until my