ing toward an unimagined destiny. As it happened, this was not to be.
I had reached the end of the side fence, and was just beginning to make my way around to the front when I was seen by a woman—a young woman, who came along the street at that moment. I knew nothing of her presence until her muffled scream reached my ears. Seeing me standing apparently on my head, she thought me a maniac.
To me she seemed a woman upside down, and I looked into her face as one looks into a reflection in the depths of a pool. A street lamp depended from the pavement above me and not far from my position of the moment, and in its light I saw that her face was young and sweet. I wonder, Haswell, if there can be any situation, however incredible, in which the face of a lovely woman will not command attention? I think not.
Well, it was a sweet face—and she did not scream again. I said to her: "Please do not be frightened. I am not crazy, although I do not wonder that you think so. Preposterous as it may seem, I am for the time being in a normal position; were I to stand upon the earth as you do, I would—"
I was going to say that I would vanish from her side, but I realized that this would be too much for her.
"I would be suffocated," I finished. "The blood would rush to my head, and I would die."
Then she spoke, and her voice was filled with tenderness. It was easy to understand that she believed me quite mad; but she did not fear me.
"You are ill," she said. "You need assistance. May I not go for help? Is there not someone you would like summoned?"
Again, Haswell, I thought of you. But would she carry a message? Would she not, instead, go for the police? Was she not even now meditating a ruse by which I might be captured before I did myself an injury? And I knew now that I could not continue by myself. Sooner or later I would be forced to drop, or I would certainly meet—not a handsome young woman but a policeman. My mind was quickly made up. I said to her:
"Thank you, my dear, for your offer; but you are in error. There is nobody who can help me now; perhaps there never will be. But this is my home here, behind me, and rather than frighten people I shall go back as I came and stay within doors. But I appreciate your kindness, and I am glad that you are not afraid of me. It may be that some day I shall be curd of this strange trouble, and if that day comes I should like to meet you again and thank you. Will you tell me your name?"
Then she told me her name, flutteringly, and—I almost screamed again.
Her name, Haswell, was Penelope! Penelope Pollard!
I all but let go of the railing that supported me, and as I wavered and seemed about to fall she gave a low cry and, turning, ran away into the darkness.
She had gone for help. I knew it, and shortly I knew that I would be the center of an embarrassing and probably a jeering crowd. And so I turned and went back. The return journey was worse than the forward journey had been, but after an agony of tortured limbs and straining sinews I found myself back in my study, and there, thoroughly worn out, I fell prone upon the floor— or the ceiling—in a corner, and went instantly to sleep.
Hours later, when I awoke, I was lying on the carpeted floor of my study, and the sun was pouring in at my window as it had done in past years. Again I was subordinate to the laws of terrestrial gravity. I fancy that as the influence passed I slid gradually down the wall until, without shock, I reached the floor.
My landlord was beating upon my door, and after a dazed moment or two I rose and tried to let him in. But as I had thrown away the key, had to pretend that I had lost it and had accidentally made myself a prisoner. When he had freed me, I asked him if there had been any inquiry after me, and he told me there had not. So it seemed that my fair friend of the night before had not returned with a posse of bluecoats. I was grateful and I determined at the first opportunity to look her up.
From that day forward I looked for her—Penelope Pollard. I traced Pollards until I almost hated the name. There were Sylvias and Graces and Sarahs and Janes and all the thousand and one other epithets bestowed on feminine innocence, but never a Penelope—never, Haswell, until last week.
Penelope!
Last week I found her. And where? Haswell, she lives within three doors of my own home. She had lived there all the time. She had seen me many times before my fateful night, and she had seen me often afterward—always walking the earth normally like other human beings, save for that one astounding evening. She was willing to talk, and glad to discuss my case; she is a highly intelligent girl, I may say. She has since told me that on that evening she believed me to be drunk. It amused her, but it did not frighten her. That is why she did not go for help; she believed it to be a drunken whim of mine to walk around on my hands, and that it would pass in its own time.
That, Haswell, is the story of my amazing connection with the star Penelope. You will understand that nearly fifty years must pass before it will again be in perihelion, and by that time, probably, I shall be dead.
I am very glad of it; one such experience is enough. Perhaps also you will understand that I would not have missed it that once for all the worlds in all the solar systems.
"I THINK your friend was right," I remarked, after a long silence. "You certainly were drunk, Raymond. Just as certainly as you are drunk tonight. Or did the whole thing happen tonight, as you went along?"
"Drunk?" he echoed. "Yes, I am drunk, Haswell—drunk with a diviner nectar than ever was brewed by man. Drunk with the wine of Penelope—the star Penelope. I have kept the best part of the story until the end. Next week Penelope and I are to be married. I am here tonight by her permission for a last bout with my old friend Haswell. It is my final jamboree. Congratulate me, Diccon!"
Of course, I congratulated him, and I did it sincerely; but the whole story still vastly puzzles me. Mrs. Raymond is a charming woman, and her name certainly is Penelope. But does that prove anything?
Almost Broke, Youth Falls Co-Heir to $12,000,000
HOWARD GIRARD, eighteen years old, had spent his last dime and was wondering where he could raise a bit of change. Then he got a job in a printing shop in Evanston, Illinois. And then, all at once, he got word that he had fallen co-heir to a $12,000,000 fortune left by his grand-uncle, Antoine Damange of Paris. Things like this have happened in romantic novels. They don't often happen in actual life. Howard, notified of his remarkable good fortune, said, "Well, that's pretty good," and then announced his intention of sticking to his job at the printing shop. His share of the estate will amount to about $2,000,000.
