"This here Progress," said Mr. Tom Smallways, "it keeps on."
"You'd hardly think it could keep on," said Mr. Tom Smallways.
It was along before the War in the Air began that Mr. Smallways made this remark. He was sitting on the fence at the end of his garden and surveying the great Bun Hill gas-works with an eye that neither praised nor blamed. Above the clustering gasometers three unfamiliar2 shapes appeared, thin, wallowing bladders that flapped and rolled about, and grew bigger and bigger and rounder and rounder--balloons in course of inflation for the South of England Aero Club's Saturday-afternoon ascent3.
"They goes up every Saturday," said his neighbour, Mr. Stringer, the milkman. "It's only yestiday, so to speak, when all London turned out to see a balloon go over, and now every little place in the country has its weekly-outings--uppings, rather. It's been the salvation4 of them gas companies."
"Larst Satiday I got three barrer-loads of gravel5 off my petaters," said Mr. Tom Smallways. "Three barrer-loads! What they dropped as ballase. Some of the plants was broke, and some was buried."
"Ladies, they say, goes up!"
"I suppose we got to call 'em ladies," said Mr. Tom Smallways.
"Still, it ain't hardly my idea of a lady--flying about in the air, and throwing gravel at people. It ain't what I been accustomed to consider ladylike, whether or no."
Mr. Stringer nodded his head approvingly, and for a time they continued to regard the swelling6 bulks with expressions that had changed from indifference7 to disapproval8.
Mr. Tom Smallways was a green-grocer by trade and a gardener by disposition9; his little wife Jessica saw to the shop, and Heaven had planned him for a peaceful world. Unfortunately Heaven had not planned a peaceful world for him. He lived in a world of obstinate10 and incessant11 change, and in parts where its operations were unsparingly conspicuous12. Vicissitude13 was in the very soil he tilled; even his garden was upon a yearly tenancy, and overshadowed by a huge board that proclaimed it not so much a garden as an eligible14 building site. He was horticulture under notice to quit, the last patch of country in a district flooded by new and (other) things. He did his best to console himself, to imagine matters near the turn of the tide.
"You'd hardly think it could keep on," he said.
Mr. Smallways' aged15 father, could remember Bun Hill as an idyllic16 Kentish village. He had driven Sir Peter Bone until he was fifty and then he took to drink a little, and driving the station bus, which lasted him until he was seventy-eight. Then he retired17. He sat by the fireside, a shrivelled, very, very old coachman, full charged with reminiscences, and ready for any careless stranger. He could tell you of the vanished estate of Sir Peter Bone, long since cut up for building, and how that magnate ruled the country-side when it was country-side, of shooting and hunting, and of caches along the high road, of how "where the gas-works is" was a cricket-field, and of the coming of the Crystal Palace. The Crystal Palace was six miles away from Bun Hill, a great facade18 that glittered in the morning, and was a clear blue outline against the sky in the afternoon, and of a night, a source of gratuitous19 fireworks for all the population of Bun Hill. And then had come the railway, and then villas20 and villas, and then the gas-works and the water-works, and a great, ugly sea of workmen's houses, and then drainage, and the water vanished out of the Otterbourne and left it a dreadful ditch, and then a second railway station, Bun Hill South, and more houses and more, more shops, more competition, plate-glass shops, a school-board, rates, omnibuses, tramcars--going right away into London itself--bicycles, motor-cars and then more motor-cars, a Carnegie library.
"You'd hardly think it could keep on," said Mr. Tom Smallways, growing up among these marvels21.
But it kept on. Even from the first the green-grocer's shop which he had set up in one of the smallest of the old surviving village houses in the tail of the High Street had a submerged air, an air of hiding from something that was looking for it. When they had made up the pavement of the High Street, they levelled that up so that one had to go down three steps into the shop. Tom did his best to sell only his own excellent but limited range of produce; but Progress came shoving things into his window, French artichokes and aubergines, foreign apples--apples from the State of New York, apples from California, apples from Canada, apples from New Zealand, "pretty lookin' fruit, but not what I should call English apples," said Tom--bananas, unfamiliar nuts, grape fruits, mangoes.
The motor-cars that went by northward23 and southward grew more and more powerful and efficient, whizzed faster and smelt24 worse, there appeared great clangorous petrol trolleys25 delivering coal and parcels in the place of vanishing horse-vans, motor-omnibuses ousted26 the horse-omnibuses, even the Kentish strawberries going Londonward in the night took to machinery27 and clattered28 instead of creaking, and became affected29 in flavour by progress and petrol.
And then young Bert Smallways got a motor bicycle....
2
Bert, it is necessary to explain, was a progressive Smallways.
Nothing speaks more eloquently30 of the pitiless insistence32 of progress and expansion in our time than that it should get into the Smallways blood. But there was something advanced and enterprising about young Smallways before he was out of short frocks. He was lost for a whole day before he was five, and nearly drowned in the reservoir of the new water-works before he was seven. He had a real pistol taken away from him by a real policeman when he was ten. And he learnt to smoke, not with pipes and brown paper and cane33 as Tom had done, but with a penny packet of Boys of England American cigarettes. His language shocked his father before he was twelve, and by that age, what with touting34 for parcels at the station and selling the Bun Hill Weekly Express, he was making three shillings a week, or more, and spending it on Chips, Comic Cuts, Ally Sloper's Half-holiday, cigarettes, and all the concomitants of a life of pleasure and enlightenment. All of this without hindrance35 to his literary studies, which carried him up to the seventh standard at an exceptionally early age. I mention these things so that you may have no doubt at all concerning the sort of stuff Bert had in him.
He was six years younger than Tom, and for a time there was an attempt to utilise him in the green-grocer's shop when Tom at twenty-one married Jessica--who was thirty, and had saved a little money in service. But it was not Bert's forte36 to be utilised. He hated digging, and when he was given a basket of stuff to deliver, a nomadic37 instinct arose irresistibly38, it became his pack and he did not seem to care how heavy it was nor where he took it, so long as he did not take it to its destination. Glamour39 filled the world, and he strayed after it, basket and all. So Tom took his goods out himself, and sought employers for Bert who did not know of this strain of poetry in his nature. And Bert touched the fringe of a number of trades in succession--draper's porter, chemist's boy, doctor's page, junior assistant gas-fitter, envelope addresser, milk-cart assistant, golf caddie, and at last helper in a bicycle shop. Here, apparently40, he found the progressive quality his nature had craved41. His employer was a pirate-souled young man named Grubb, with a black-smeared face by day, and a music-hall side in the evening, who dreamt of a patent lever chain; and it seemed to Bert that he was the perfect model of a gentleman of spirit. He hired out quite the dirtiest and unsafest bicycles in the whole south of England, and conducted the subsequent discussions with astonishing verve. Bert and he settled down very well together. Bert lived in, became almost a trick rider--he could ride bicycles for miles that would have come to pieces instantly under you or me--took to washing his face after business, and spent his surplus money upon remarkable42 ties and collars, cigarettes, and shorthand classes at the Bun Hill Institute.
He would go round to Tom at times, and look and talk so brilliantly that Tom and Jessie, who both had a natural tendency to be respectful to anybody or anything, looked up to him immensely.
"He's a go-ahead chap, is Bert," said Tom. "He knows a thing or two."
"Let's hope he don't know too much," said Jessica, who had a fine sense of limitations.
"It's go-ahead Times," said Tom. "Noo petaters, and English at that; we'll be having 'em in March if things go on as they do go. I never see such Times. See his tie last night?"
"It wasn't suited to him, Tom. It was a gentleman's tie. He wasn't up to it--not the rest of him, It wasn't becoming"...
Then presently Bert got a cyclist's suit, cap, badge, and all; and to see him and Grubb going down to Brighton (and back)--heads down, handle-bars down, backbones43 curved--was a revelation in the possibilities of the Smallways blood.
Go-ahead Times!
Old Smallways would sit over the fire mumbling44 of the greatness of other days, of old Sir Peter, who drove his coach to Brighton and back in eight-and-twenty hours, of old Sir Peter's white top-hats, of Lady Bone, who never set foot to ground except to walk in the garden, of the great, prize-fights at Crawley. He talked of pink and pig-skin breeches, of foxes at Ring's Bottom, where now the County Council pauper45 lunatics were enclosed, of Lady Bone's chintzes and crinolines. Nobody heeded46 him. The world had thrown up a new type of gentleman altogether--a gentleman of most ungentlemanly energy, a gentleman in dusty oilskins and motor goggles47 and a wonderful cap, a stink48-making gentleman, a swift, high-class badger49, who fled perpetually along high roads from the dust and stink he perpetually made. And his lady, as they were able to see her at Bun Hill, was a weather-bitten goddess, as free from refinement50 as a gipsy--not so much dressed as packed for transit51 at a high velocity52.
So Bert grew up, filled with ideals of speed and enterprise, and became, so far as he became anything, a kind of bicycle engineer of the let's-have-a-look-at-it and enamel53 chipping variety. Even a road-racer, geared to a hundred and twenty, failed to satisfy him, and for a time he pined in vain at twenty miles an hour along roads that were continually more dusty and more crowded with mechanical traffic. But at last his savings54 accumulated, and his chance came. The hire-purchase system bridged a financial gap, and one bright and memorable55 Sunday morning he wheeled his new possession through the shop into the road, got on to it with the advice and assistance of Grubb, and teuf-teuffed off into the haze56 of the traffic-tortured high road, to add himself as one more voluntary public danger to the amenities57 of the south of England.
"Orf to Brighton!" said old Smallways, regarding his youngest son from the sitting-room58 window over the green-grocer's shop with something between pride and reprobation59. "When I was 'is age, I'd never been to London, never bin60 south of Crawley--never bin anywhere on my own where I couldn't walk. And nobody didn't go. Not unless they was gentry61. Now every body's orf everywhere; the whole dratted country sims flying to pieces. Wonder they all get back. Orf to Brighton indeed! Anybody want to buy 'orses?"
"You can't say _I_ bin to Brighton, father," said Tom.
"Nor don't want to go," said Jessica sharply; "creering about and spendin' your money."
3
For a time the possibilities of the motor-bicycle so occupied Bert's mind that he remained regardless of the new direction in which the striving soul of man was finding exercise and refreshment62. He failed to observe that the type of motor-car, like the type of bicycle, was settling-down and losing its adventurous63 quality. Indeed, it is as true as it is remarkable that Tom was the first to observe the new development. But his gardening made him attentive64 to the heavens, and the proximity65 of the Bun Hill gas-works and the Crystal Palace, from which ascents66 were continually being made, and presently the descent of ballast upon his potatoes, conspired67 to bear in upon his unwilling68 mind the fact that the Goddess of Change was turning her disturbing attention to the sky. The first great boom in aeronautics70 was beginning.
Grubb and Bert heard of it in a music-hall, then it was driven home to their minds by the cinematograph, then Bert's imagination was stimulated71 by a sixpenny edition of that aeronautic69 classic, Mr. George Griffith's "Clipper of the Clouds," and so the thing really got hold of them.
At first the most obvious aspect was the multiplication72 of balloons. The sky of Bun Hill began to be infested73 by balloons. On Wednesday and Saturday afternoons particularly you could scarcely look skyward for a quarter of an hour without discovering a balloon somewhere. And then one bright day Bert, motoring toward Croydon, was arrested by the insurgence74 of a huge, bolster75-shaped monster from the Crystal Palace grounds, and obliged to dismount and watch it. It was like a bolster with a broken nose, and below it, and comparatively small, was a stiff framework bearing a man and an engine with a screw that whizzed round in front and a sort of canvas rudder behind. The framework had an air of dragging the reluctant gas-cylinder after it like a brisk little terrier towing a shy gas-distended elephant into society. The combined monster certainly travelled and steered76. It went overhead perhaps a thousand feet up (Bert heard the engine), sailed away southward, vanished over the hills, reappeared a little blue outline far off in the east, going now very fast before a gentle south-west gale77, returned above the Crystal Palace towers, circled round them, chose a position for descent, and sank down out of sight.
Bert sighed deeply, and turned to his motor-bicycle again.
And that was only the beginning of a succession of strange phenomena78 in the heavens--cylinders, cones79, pear-shaped monsters, even at last a thing of aluminium80 that glittered wonderfully, and that Grubb, through some confusion of ideas about armour81 plates, was inclined to consider a war machine.
There followed actual flight.
This, however, was not an affair that was visible from Bun Hill; it was something that occurred in private grounds or other enclosed places and, under favourable82 conditions, and it was brought home to Grubb and Bert Smallways only by means of the magazine page of the half-penny newspapers or by cinematograph records. But it was brought home very insistently83, and in those days if, ever one heard a man saying in a public place in a loud, reassuring84, confident tone, "It's bound to come," the chances were ten to one he was talking of flying. And Bert got a box lid and wrote out in correct window-ticket style, and Grubb put in the window this inscription85, "Aeroplanes made and repaired." It quite upset Tom--it seemed taking one's shop so lightly; but most of the neighbours, and all the sporting ones, approved of it as being very good indeed.
Everybody talked of flying, everybody repeated over and over again, "Bound to come," and then you know it didn't come. There was a hitch86. They flew--that was all right; they flew in machines heavier than air. But they smashed. Sometimes they smashed the engine, sometimes they smashed the aeronaut, usually they smashed both. Machines that made flights of three or four miles and came down safely, went up the next time to headlong disaster. There seemed no possible trusting to them. The breeze upset them, the eddies87 near the ground upset them, a passing thought in the mind of the aeronaut upset them. Also they upset--simply.
"It's this 'stability' does 'em," said Grubb, repeating his newspaper. "They pitch and they pitch, till they pitch themselves to pieces."
Experiments fell away after two expectant years of this sort of success, the public and then the newspapers tired of the expensive photographic reproductions, the optimistic reports, the perpetual sequence of triumph and disaster and silence. Flying slumped89, even ballooning fell away to some extent, though it remained a fairly popular sport, and continued to lift gravel from the wharf90 of the Bun Hill gas-works and drop it upon deserving people's lawns and gardens. There were half a dozen reassuring years for Tom--at least so far as flying was concerned. But that was the great time of mono-rail development, and his anxiety was only diverted from the high heavens by the most urgent threats and symptoms of change in the lower sky.
There had been talk of mono-rails for several years. But the real mischief91 began when Brennan sprang his gyroscopic mono-rail car upon the Royal Society. It was the leading sensation of the 1907 soirees; that celebrated92 demonstration93-room was all too small for its exhibition. Brave soldiers, leading Zionists, deserving novelists, noble ladies, congested the narrow passage and thrust distinguished94 elbows into ribs95 the world would not willingly let break, deeming themselves fortunate if they could see "just a little bit of the rail." Inaudible, but convincing, the great inventor expounded96 his discovery, and sent his obedient little model of the trains of the future up gradients, round curves, and across a sagging97 wire. It ran along its single rail, on its single wheels, simple and sufficient; it stopped, reversed stood still, balancing perfectly98. It maintained its astounding99 equilibrium100 amidst a thunder of applause. The audience dispersed101 at last, discussing how far they would enjoy crossing an abyss on a wire cable. "Suppose the gyroscope stopped!" Few of them anticipated a tithe102 of what the Brennan mono-rail would do for their railway securities and the face of the world.
In a few, years they realised better. In a little while no one thought anything of crossing an abyss on a wire, and the mono-rail was superseding103 the tram-lines, railways: and indeed every form of track for mechanical locomotion104. Where land was cheap the rail ran along the ground, where it was dear the rail lifted up on iron standards and passed overhead; its swift, convenient cars went everywhere and did everything that had once been done along made tracks upon the ground.
When old Smallways died, Tom could think of nothing more striking to say of him than that, "When he was a boy, there wasn't nothing higher than your chimbleys--there wasn't a wire nor a cable in the sky!"
Old Smallways went to his grave under an intricate network of wires and cables, for Bun Hill became not only a sort of minor105 centre of power distribution--the Home Counties Power Distribution Company set up transformers and a generating station close beside the old gas-works--but, also a junction106 on the suburban107 mono-rail system. Moreover, every tradesman in the place, and indeed nearly every house, had its own telephone.
The mono-rail cable standard became a striking fact in urban landscape, for the most part stout109 iron erections rather like tapering110 trestles, and painted a bright bluish green. One, it happened, bestrode Tom's house, which looked still more retiring and apologetic beneath its immensity; and another giant stood just inside the corner of his garden, which was still not built upon and unchanged, except for a couple of advertisement boards, one recommending a two-and-sixpenny watch, and one a nerve restorer. These, by the bye, were placed almost horizontally to catch the eye of the passing mono-rail passengers above, and so served admirably to roof over a tool-shed and a mushroom-shed for Tom. All day and all night the fast cars from Brighton and Hastings went murmuring by overhead long, broad, comfortable-looking cars, that were brightly lit after dusk. As they flew by at night, transient flares111 of light and a rumbling112 sound of passage, they kept up a perpetual summer lightning and thunderstorm in the street below.
Presently the English Channel was bridged--a series of great iron Eiffel Tower pillars carrying mono-rail cables at a height of a hundred and fifty feet above the water, except near the middle, where they rose higher to allow the passage of the London and Antwerp shipping113 and the Hamburg-America liners.
Then heavy motor-cars began to run about on only a couple of wheels, one behind the other, which for some reason upset Tom dreadfully, and made him gloomy for days after the first one passed the shop...
All this gyroscopic and mono-rail development naturally absorbed a vast amount of public attention, and there was also a huge excitement consequent upon the amazing gold discoveries off the coast of Anglesea made by a submarine prospector114, Miss Patricia Giddy. She had taken her degree in geology and mineralogy in the University of London, and while working upon the auriferous rocks of North Wales, after a brief holiday spent in agitating115 for women's suffrage116, she had been struck by the possibility of these reefs cropping up again under the water. She had set herself to verify this supposition by the use of the submarine crawler invented by Doctor Alberto Cassini. By a happy mingling117 of reasoning and intuition peculiar118 to her sex she found gold at her first descent, and emerged after three hours' submersion with about two hundredweight of ore containing gold in the unparalleled quantity of seventeen ounces to the ton. But the whole story of her submarine mining, intensely interesting as it is, must be told at some other time; suffice it now to remark simply that it was during the consequent great rise of prices, confidence, and enterprise that the revival119 of interest in flying occurred.
It is curious how that revival began. It was like the coming of a breeze on a quiet day; nothing started it, it came. People began to talk of flying with an air of never having for one moment dropped the subject. Pictures of flying and flying machines returned to the newspapers; articles and allusions120 increased and multiplied in the serious magazines. People asked in mono-rail trains, "When are we going to fly?" A new crop of inventors sprang up in a night or so like fungi121. The Aero Club announced the project of a great Flying Exhibition in a large area of ground that the removal of slums in Whitechapel had rendered available.
The advancing wave soon produced a sympathetic ripple122 in the Bun Hill establishment. Grubb routed out his flying-machine model again, tried it in the yard behind the shop, got a kind of flight out of it, and broke seventeen panes123 of glass and nine flower-pots in the greenhouse that occupied the next yard but one.
And then, springing from nowhere, sustained one knew not how, came a persistent124, disturbing rumour125 that the problem had been solved, that the secret was known. Bert met it one early-closing afternoon as he refreshed himself in an inn near Nutfield, whither his motor-bicycle had brought him. There smoked and meditated126 a person in khaki, an engineer, who presently took an interest in Bert's machine. It was a sturdy piece of apparatus127, and it had acquired a kind of documentary value in these quick-changing times; it was now nearly eight years old. Its points discussed, the soldier broke into a new topic with, "My next's going to be an aeroplane, so far as I can see. I've had enough of roads and ways."
"They TORK," said Bert.
"They talk--and they do," said the soldier.
"The thing's coming--"
"It keeps ON coming," said Bert; "I shall believe when I see it."
"That won't be long," said the soldier.
The conversation seemed degenerating128 into an amiable129 wrangle130 of contradiction.
"I tell you they ARE flying," the soldier insisted. "I see it myself."
"We've all seen it," said Bert.
"I don't mean flap up and smash up; I mean real, safe, steady, controlled flying, against the wind, good and right."
"You ain't seen that!"
"I 'AVE! Aldershot. They try to keep it a secret. They got it right enough. You bet--our War Office isn't going to be caught napping this time."
Bert's incredulity was shaken. He asked questions--and the soldier expanded.
"I tell you they got nearly a square mile fenced in--a sort of valley. Fences of barbed wire ten feet high, and inside that they do things. Chaps about the camp--now and then we get a peep. It isn't only us neither. There's the Japanese; you bet they got it too--and the Germans!"
The soldier stood with his legs very wide apart, and filled his pipe thoughtfully. Bert sat on the low wall against which his motor-bicycle was leaning.
"Funny thing fighting'll be," he said.
"Flying's going to break out," said the soldier. "When it DOES come, when the curtain does go up, I tell you you'll find every one on the stage--busy.... Such fighting, too!... I suppose you don't read the papers about this sort of thing?"
"I read 'em a bit," said Bert.
"Well, have you noticed what one might call the remarkable case of the disappearing inventor--the inventor who turns up in a blaze of publicity131, fires off a few successful experiments, and vanishes?"
"Can't say I 'ave," said Bert.
"Well, I 'ave, anyhow. You get anybody come along who does anything striking in this line, and, you bet, he vanishes. Just goes off quietly out of sight. After a bit, you don't hear anything more of 'em at all. See? They disappear. Gone--no address. First--oh! it's an old story now--there was those Wright Brothers out in America. They glided132--they glided miles and miles. Finally they glided off stage. Why, it must be nineteen hundred and four, or five, THEY vanished! Then there was those people in Ireland--no, I forget their names. Everybody said they could fly. THEY went. They ain't dead that I've heard tell; but you can't say they're alive. Not a feather of 'em can you see. Then that chap who flew round Paris and upset in the Seine. De Booley, was it? I forget. That was a grand fly, in spite of the accident; but where's he got to? The accident didn't hurt him. Eh? _'E_'s gone to cover."
The soldier prepared to light his pipe.
"Looks like a secret society got hold of them," said Bert.
"Secret society! NAW!"
The soldier lit his match, and drew. "Secret society," he repeated, with his pipe between his teeth and the match flaring133, in response to his words. "War Departments; that's more like it." He threw his match aside, and walked to his machine. "I tell you, sir," he said, "there isn't a big Power in Europe, OR Asia, OR America, OR Africa, that hasn't got at least one or two flying machines hidden up its sleeve at the present time. Not one. Real, workable, flying machines. And the spying! The spying and manoeuvring to find out what the others have got. I tell you, sir, a foreigner, or, for the matter of that, an unaccredited native, can't get within four miles of Lydd nowadays--not to mention our little circus at Aldershot, and the experimental camp in Galway. No!"
"Well," said Bert, "I'd like to see one of them, anyhow. Jest to help believing. I'll believe when I see, that I'll promise you."
"You'll see 'em, fast enough," said the soldier, and led his machine out into the road.
He left Bert on his wall, grave and pensive88, with his cap on the back of his head, and a cigarette smouldering in the corner of his mouth.
"If what he says is true," said Bert, "me and Grubb, we been wasting our blessed old time. Besides incurring134 expense with that green-'ouse."
5
It was while this mysterious talk with the soldier still stirred in Bert Smallways' imagination that the most astounding incident in the whole of that dramatic chapter of human history, the coming of flying, occurred. People talk glibly135 enough of epoch-making events; this was an epoch-making event. It was the unanticipated and entirely136 successful flight of Mr. Alfred Butteridge from the Crystal Palace to Glasgow and back in a small businesslike-looking machine heavier than air--an entirely manageable and controllable machine that could fly as well as a pigeon.
It wasn't, one felt, a fresh step forward in the matter so much as a giant stride, a leap. Mr. Butteridge remained in the air altogether for about nine hours, and during that time he flew with the ease and assurance of a bird. His machine was, however neither bird-like nor butterfly-like, nor had it the wide, lateral137 expansion of the ordinary aeroplane. The effect upon the observer was rather something in the nature of a bee or wasp138. Parts of the apparatus were spinning very rapidly, and gave one a hazy139 effect of transparent140 wings; but parts, including two peculiarly curved "wing-cases"--if one may borrow a figure from the flying beetles--remained expanded stiffly. In the middle was a long rounded body like the body of a moth141, and on this Mr. Butteridge could be seen sitting astride, much as a man bestrides a horse. The wasp-like resemblance was increased by the fact that the apparatus flew with a deep booming hum, exactly the sound made by a wasp at a windowpane.
Mr. Butteridge took the world by surprise. He was one of those gentlemen from nowhere Fate still succeeds in producing for the stimulation142 of mankind. He came, it was variously said, from Australia and America and the South of France. He was also described quite incorrectly as the son of a man who had amassed143 a comfortable fortune in the manufacture of gold nibs144 and the Butteridge fountain pens. But this was an entirely different strain of Butteridges. For some years, in spite of a loud voice, a large presence, an aggressive swagger, and an implacable manner, he had been an undistinguished member of most of the existing aeronautical145 associations. Then one day he wrote to all the London papers to announce that he had made arrangements for an ascent from the Crystal Palace of a machine that would demonstrate satisfactorily that the outstanding difficulties in the way of flying were finally solved. Few of the papers printed his letter, still fewer were the people who believed in his claim. No one was excited even when a fracas146 on the steps of a leading hotel in Piccadilly, in which he tried to horse-whip a prominent German musician upon some personal account, delayed his promised ascent. The quarrel was inadequately147 reported, and his name spelt variously Betteridge and Betridge. Until his flight indeed, he did not and could not contrive148 to exist in the public mind. There were scarcely thirty people on the look-out for him, in spite of all his clamour, when about six o'clock one summer morning the doors of the big shed in which he had been putting together his apparatus opened--it was near the big model of a megatherium in the Crystal Palace grounds--and his giant insect came droning out into a negligent149 and incredulous world.
But before he had made his second circuit of the Crystal Palace towers, Fame was lifting her trumpet150, she drew a deep breath as the startled tramps who sleep on the seats of Trafalgar Square were roused by his buzz and awoke to discover him circling the Nelson column, and by the time he had got to Birmingham, which place he crossed about half-past ten, her deafening151 blast was echoing throughout the country. The despaired-of thing was done.
A man was flying securely and well.
Scotland was agape for his coming. Glasgow he reached by one o'clock, and it is related that scarcely a ship-yard or factory in that busy hive of industry resumed work before half-past two. The public mind was just sufficiently152 educated in the impossibility of flying to appreciate Mr. Butteridge at his proper value. He circled the University buildings, and dropped to within shouting distance of the crowds in West End Park and on the slope of Gilmorehill. The thing flew quite steadily153 at a pace of about three miles an hour, in a wide circle, making a deep hum that, would have drowned his full, rich voice completely had he not provided himself with a megaphone. He avoided churches, buildings, and mono-rail cables with consummate154 ease as he conversed155.
"Me name's Butteridge," he shouted; "B-U-T-T-E-R-I-D-G-E.--Got it? Me mother was Scotch156."
And having assured himself that he had been understood, he rose amidst cheers and shouting and patriotic157 cries, and then flew up very swiftly and easily into the south-eastern sky, rising and falling with long, easy undulations in an extraordinarily158 wasp-like manner.
His return to London--he visited and hovered159 over Manchester and Liverpool and Oxford160 on his way, and spelt his name out to each place--was an occasion of unparalleled excitement. Every one was staring heavenward. More people were run over in the streets upon that one day, than in the previous three months, and a County Council steamboat, the Isaac Walton, collided with a pier161 of Westminster Bridge, and narrowly escaped disaster by running ashore--it was low water--on the mud on the south side. He returned to the Crystal Palace grounds, that classic starting-point of aeronautical adventure, about sunset, re-entered his shed without disaster, and had the doors locked immediately upon the photographers and journalists who been waiting his return.
"Look here, you chaps," he said, as his assistant did so, "I'm tired to death, and saddle sore. I can't give you a word of talk. I'm too--done. My name's Butteridge. B-U-T-T-E-R-I-D-G-E. Get that right. I'm an Imperial Englishman. I'll talk to you all to-morrow."
Foggy snapshots still survive to record that incident. His assistant struggles in a sea of aggressive young men carrying note-books or upholding cameras and wearing bowler162 hats and enterprising ties. He himself towers up in the doorway163, a big figure with a mouth--an eloquent31 cavity beneath a vast black moustache--distorted by his shout to these relentless164 agents of publicity. He towers there, the most famous man in the country.
Almost symbolically165 he holds and gesticulates with a megaphone in his left hand.
6
Tom and Bert Smallways both saw that return. They watched from the crest166 of Bun Hill, from which they had so often surveyed the pyrotechnics of the Crystal Palace. Bert was excited, Tom kept calm and lumpish, but neither of them realised how their own lives were to be invaded by the fruits of that beginning. "P'raps old Grubb'll mind the shop a bit now," he said, "and put his blessed model in the fire. Not that that can save us, if we don't tide over with Steinhart's account."
Bert knew enough of things and the problem of aeronautics to realise that this gigantic imitation of a bee would, to use his own idiom, "give the newspapers fits." The next day it was clear the fits had been given even as he said: their magazine pages were black with hasty photographs, their prose was convulsive, they foamed167 at the headline. The next day they were worse. Before the week was out they were not so much published as carried screaming into the street.
The dominant168 fact in the uproar169 was the exceptional personality of Mr. Butteridge, and the extraordinary terms he demanded for the secret of his machine.
For it was a secret and he kept it secret in the most elaborate fashion. He built his apparatus himself in the safe privacy of the great Crystal Palace sheds, with the assistance of inattentive workmen, and the day next following his flight he took it to pieces single handed, packed certain portions, and then secured unintelligent assistance in packing and dispersing170 the rest. Sealed packing-cases went north and east and west to various pantechnicons, and the engines were boxed with peculiar care. It became evident these precautions were not inadvisable in view of the violent demand for any sort of photograph or impressions of his machine. But Mr. Butteridge, having once made his demonstration, intended to keep his secret safe from any further risk of leakage171. He faced the British public now with the question whether they wanted his secret or not; he was, he said perpetually, an "Imperial Englishman," and his first wish and his last was to see his invention the privilege and monopoly of the Empire. Only--
It was there the difficulty began.
Mr. Butteridge, it became evident, was a man singularly free from any false modesty172--indeed, from any modesty of any kind--singularly willing to see interviewers, answer questions upon any topic except aeronautics, volunteer opinions, criticisms, and autobiography173, supply portraits and photographs of himself, and generally spread his personality across the terrestrial sky. The published portraits insisted primarily upon an immense black moustache, and secondarily upon a fierceness behind the moustache. The general impression upon the public was that Butteridge, was a small man. No one big, it was felt, could have so virulently174 aggressive an expression, though, as a matter of fact, Butteridge had a height of six feet two inches, and a weight altogether proportionate to that. Moreover, he had a love affair of large and unusual dimensions and irregular circumstances and the still largely decorous British public learnt with reluctance175 and alarm that a sympathetic treatment of this affair was inseparable from the exclusive acquisition of the priceless secret of aerial stability by the British Empire. The exact particulars of the similarity never came to light, but apparently the lady had, in a fit of high-minded inadvertence, had gone through the ceremony of marriage with, one quotes the unpublished discourse176 of Mr. Butteridge--"a white-livered skunk," and this zoological aberration177 did in some legal and vexatious manner mar1 her social happiness. He wanted to talk about the business, to show the splendour of her nature in the light of its complications. It was really most embarrassing to a press that has always possessed178 a considerable turn for reticence179, that wanted things personal indeed in the modern fashion. Yet not too personal. It was embarrassing, I say, to be inexorably confronted with Mr. Butteridge's great heart, to see it laid open in relentlesss self-vivisection, and its pulsating180 dissepiments adorned181 with emphatic182 flag labels.
Confronted they were, and there was no getting away from it. He would make this appalling183 viscus beat and throb184 before the shrinking journalists--no uncle with a big watch and a little baby ever harped185 upon it so relentlessly186; whatever evasion187 they attempted he set aside. He "gloried in his love," he said, and compelled them to write it down.
"That's of course a private affair, Mr. Butteridge," they would object.
"The injustice189, sorr, is public. I do not care either I am up against institutions or individuals. I do not care if I am up against the universal All. I am pleading the cause of a woman, a woman I lurve, sorr--a noble woman--misunderstood. I intend to vindicate190 her, sorr, to the four winds of heaven!"
"I lurve England," he used to say--"lurve England, but Puritanism, sorr, I abhor191. It fills me with loathing192. It raises my gorge193. Take my own case."
He insisted relentlessly upon his heart, and upon seeing proofs of the interview. If they had not done justice to his erotic bellowings and gesticulations, he stuck in, in a large inky scrawl195, all and more than they had omitted.
It was a strangely embarrassing thing for British journalism196. Never was there a more obvious or uninteresting affair; never had the world heard the story of erratic197 affection with less appetite or sympathy. On the other hand it was extremely curious about Mr. Butteridge's invention. But when Mr. Butteridge could be deflected198 for a moment from the cause of the lady he championed, then he talked chiefly, and usually with tears of tenderness in his voice, about his mother and his childhood--his mother who crowned a complete encyclopedia199 of maternal200 virtue201 by being "largely Scotch." She was not quite neat, but nearly so. "I owe everything in me to me mother," he asserted--"everything. Eh!" and--"ask any man who's done anything. You'll hear the same story. All we have we owe to women. They are the species, sorr. Man is but a dream. He comes and goes. The woman's soul leadeth us upward and on!"
He was always going on like that.
What in particular he wanted from the Government for his secret did not appear, nor what beyond a money payment could be expected from a modern state in such an affair. The general effect upon judicious202 observers, indeed, was not that he was treating for anything, but that he was using an unexampled opportunity to bellow194 and show off to an attentive world. Rumours203 of his real identity spread abroad. It was said that he had been the landlord of an ambiguous hotel in Cape108 Town, and had there given shelter to, and witnessed, the experiments and finally stolen the papers and plans of, an extremely shy and friendless young inventor named Palliser, who had come to South Africa from England in an advanced stage of consumption, and died there. This, at any rate, was the allegation of the more outspoken204 American press. But the proof or disproof of that never reached the public.
Mr. Butteridge also involved himself passionately205 in a tangle206 of disputes for the possession of a great number of valuable money prizes. Some of these had been offered so long ago as 1906 for successful mechanical flight. By the time of Mr. Butteridge's success a really very considerable number of newspapers, tempted188 by the impunity207 of the pioneers in this direction, had pledged themselves to pay in some cases, quite overwhelming sums to the first person to fly from Manchester to Glasgow, from London to Manchester, one hundred miles, two hundred miles in England, and the like. Most had hedged a little with ambiguous conditions, and now offered resistance; one or two paid at once, and vehemently208 called attention to the fact; and Mr. Butteridge plunged209 into litigation with the more recalcitrant210, while at the same time sustaining a vigorous agitation211 and canvass212 to induce the Government to purchase his invention.
One fact, however, remained permanent throughout all the developments of this affair behind Butteridge's preposterous213 love interest, his politics and personality, and all his shouting and boasting, and that was that, so far as the mass of people knew, he was in sole possession of the secret of the practicable aeroplane in which, for all one could tell to the contrary, the key of the future empire of the world resided. And presently, to the great consternation214 of innumerable people, including among others Mr. Bert Smallways, it became apparent that whatever negotiations215 were in progress for the acquisition of this precious secret by the British Government were in danger of falling through. The London Daily Requiem216 first voiced the universal alarm, and published an interview under the terrific caption217 of, "Mr. Butteridge Speaks his Mind."
Therein the inventor--if he was an inventor--poured out his heart.
"I came from the end of the earth," he said, which rather seemed to confirm the Cape Town story, "bringing me Motherland the secret that would give her the empire of the world. And what do I get?" He paused. "I am sniffed218 at by elderly mandarins!... And the woman I love is treated like a leper!"
"I am an Imperial Englishman," he went on in a splendid outburst, subsequently written into the interview by his own hand; "but there there are limits to the human heart! There are younger nations--living nations! Nations that do not snore and gurgle helplessly in paroxysms of plethora219 upon beds of formality and red tape! There are nations that will not fling away the empire of earth in order to slight an unknown man and insult a noble woman whose boots they are not fitted to unlatch. There are nations not blinded to Science, not given over hand and foot to effete220 snobocracies and Degenerate221 Decadents222. In short, mark my words--THERE ARE OTHER NATIONS!"
This speech it was that particularly impressed Bert Smallways. "If them Germans or them Americans get hold of this," he said impressively to his brother, "the British Empire's done. It's U-P. The Union Jack223, so to speak, won't be worth the paper it's written on, Tom."
"I suppose you couldn't lend us a hand this morning," said Jessica, in his impressive pause. "Everybody in Bun Hill seems wanting early potatoes at once. Tom can't carry half of them."
"We're living on a volcano," said Bert, disregarding the suggestion. "At any moment war may come--such a war!"
He shook his head portentously224.
"You'd better take this lot first, Tom," said Jessica. She turned briskly on Bert. "Can you spare us a morning?" she asked.
"I dessay I can," said Bert. "The shop's very quiet s'morning. Though all this danger to the Empire worries me something frightful225."
"Work'll take it off your mind," said Jessica.
And presently he too was going out into a world of change and wonder, bowed beneath a load of potatoes and patriotic insecurity, that merged22 at last into a very definite irritation226 at the weight and want of style of the potatoes and a very clear conception of the entire detestableness of Jessica.
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mar
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| vt.破坏，毁坏，弄糟 | |
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unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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13
vicissitude
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| n.变化，变迁，荣枯，盛衰 | |
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eligible
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| adj.有条件被选中的；(尤指婚姻等)合适(意)的 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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idyllic
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| adj.质朴宜人的，田园风光的 | |
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17
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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18
facade
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| n.(建筑物的)正面，临街正面；外表 | |
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19
gratuitous
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| adj.无偿的，免费的；无缘无故的，不必要的 | |
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villas
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| 别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅 | |
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marvels
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| n.奇迹( marvel的名词复数 )；令人惊奇的事物（或事例）；不平凡的成果；成就v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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22
merged
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| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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23
northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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24
smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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25
trolleys
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| n.（两轮或四轮的）手推车( trolley的名词复数 )；装有脚轮的小台车；电车 | |
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ousted
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| 驱逐( oust的过去式和过去分词 )； 革职； 罢黜； 剥夺 | |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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28
clattered
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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29
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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eloquently
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| adv. 雄辩地(有口才地, 富于表情地) | |
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eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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32
insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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34
touting
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| v.兜售( tout的现在分词 )；招揽；侦查；探听赛马情报 | |
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hindrance
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| n.妨碍，障碍 | |
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forte
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| n.长处，擅长；adj.(音乐)强音的 | |
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nomadic
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| adj.流浪的；游牧的 | |
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irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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glamour
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| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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craved
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| 渴望，热望( crave的过去式 )； 恳求，请求 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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backbones
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| n.骨干( backbone的名词复数 )；脊骨；骨气；脊骨状物 | |
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mumbling
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的现在分词 ) | |
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pauper
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| n.贫民，被救济者，穷人 | |
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46
heeded
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| v.听某人的劝告，听从( heed的过去式和过去分词 )；变平，使（某物）变平( flatten的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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goggles
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| n.护目镜 | |
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48
stink
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| vi.发出恶臭；糟透，招人厌恶；n.恶臭 | |
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49
badger
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| v.一再烦扰，一再要求，纠缠 | |
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50
refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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transit
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| n.经过，运输；vt.穿越，旋转；vi.越过 | |
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52
velocity
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| n.速度，速率 | |
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53
enamel
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| n.珐琅，搪瓷，瓷釉；(牙齿的)珐琅质 | |
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54
savings
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| n.存款，储蓄 | |
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memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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56
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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57
amenities
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| n.令人愉快的事物；礼仪；礼节；便利设施；礼仪( amenity的名词复数 )；便利设施；（环境等的）舒适；（性情等的）愉快 | |
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58
sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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59
reprobation
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| n.斥责 | |
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bin
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| n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件 | |
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gentry
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| n.绅士阶级，上层阶级 | |
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62
refreshment
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| n.恢复，精神爽快，提神之事物；（复数）refreshments:点心，茶点 | |
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63
adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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proximity
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| n.接近，邻近 | |
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ascents
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| n.上升( ascent的名词复数 )；（身份、地位等的）提高；上坡路；攀登 | |
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conspired
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| 密谋( conspire的过去式和过去分词 )； 搞阴谋； （事件等）巧合； 共同导致 | |
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68
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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aeronautic
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| adj.航空（学）的 | |
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aeronautics
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| n.航空术，航空学 | |
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stimulated
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| a.刺激的 | |
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72
multiplication
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| n.增加，增多，倍增；增殖，繁殖；乘法 | |
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73
infested
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| adj.为患的，大批滋生的（常与with搭配）v.害虫、野兽大批出没于( infest的过去式和过去分词 )；遍布于 | |
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74
insurgence
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| n.起义；造反；暴动；叛乱 | |
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bolster
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| n.枕垫；v.支持，鼓励 | |
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76
steered
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| v.驾驶( steer的过去式和过去分词 )；操纵；控制；引导 | |
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gale
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| n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等） | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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cones
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| n.（人眼）圆锥细胞；圆锥体( cone的名词复数 )；球果；圆锥形东西；（盛冰淇淋的）锥形蛋卷筒 | |
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80
aluminium
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| n.铝 (=aluminum) | |
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81
armour
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| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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82
favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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83
insistently
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| ad.坚持地 | |
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84
reassuring
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| a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的 | |
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85
inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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86
hitch
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| v.免费搭(车旅行)；系住；急提；n.故障；急拉 | |
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87
eddies
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| （水、烟等的）漩涡，涡流( eddy的名词复数 ) | |
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88
pensive
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| a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
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89
slumped
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| 大幅度下降，暴跌( slump的过去式和过去分词 )； 沉重或突然地落下[倒下] | |
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90
wharf
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| n.码头，停泊处 | |
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91
mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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92
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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93
demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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94
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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95
ribs
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|
| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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96
expounded
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| 论述，详细讲解( expound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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97
sagging
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| 下垂[沉，陷]，松垂，垂度 | |
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98
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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99
astounding
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|
| adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
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100
equilibrium
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| n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静 | |
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101
dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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102
tithe
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| n.十分之一税；v.课什一税，缴什一税 | |
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103
superseding
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| 取代，接替( supersede的现在分词 ) | |
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104
locomotion
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| n.运动，移动 | |
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105
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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106
junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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107
suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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108
cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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110
tapering
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| adj.尖端细的 | |
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111
flares
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| n.喇叭裤v.（使）闪耀( flare的第三人称单数 )；（使）（船舷）外倾；（使）鼻孔张大；（使）（衣裙、酒杯等）呈喇叭形展开 | |
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112
rumbling
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| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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113
shipping
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| n.船运（发货，运输，乘船） | |
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114
prospector
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| n.探矿者 | |
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115
agitating
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| 搅动( agitate的现在分词 )； 激怒； 使焦虑不安； （尤指为法律、社会状况的改变而）激烈争论 | |
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116
suffrage
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| n.投票，选举权，参政权 | |
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117
mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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118
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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119
revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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120
allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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121
fungi
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| n.真菌，霉菌 | |
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122
ripple
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| n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进 | |
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123
panes
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| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
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124
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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125
rumour
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| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
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126
meditated
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| 深思，沉思，冥想( meditate的过去式和过去分词 )； 内心策划，考虑 | |
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127
apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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128
degenerating
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| 衰退，堕落，退化( degenerate的现在分词 ) | |
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129
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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130
wrangle
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| vi.争吵 | |
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131
publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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132
glided
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| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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133
flaring
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| a.火焰摇曳的，过份艳丽的 | |
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134
incurring
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| 遭受，招致，引起( incur的现在分词 ) | |
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135
glibly
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| adv.流利地，流畅地；满口 | |
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136
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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137
lateral
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| adj.侧面的，旁边的 | |
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138
wasp
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| n.黄蜂，蚂蜂 | |
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139
hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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140
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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141
moth
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| n.蛾，蛀虫 | |
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142
stimulation
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| n.刺激，激励，鼓舞 | |
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143
amassed
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| v.积累，积聚( amass的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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144
nibs
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| 上司，大人物； 钢笔尖，鹅毛管笔笔尖( nib的名词复数 )； 可可豆的碎粒； 小瑕疵 | |
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145
aeronautical
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| adj.航空（学）的 | |
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146
fracas
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| n.打架；吵闹 | |
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147
inadequately
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| ad.不够地；不够好地 | |
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148
contrive
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| vt.谋划，策划；设法做到；设计，想出 | |
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149
negligent
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| adj.疏忽的；玩忽的；粗心大意的 | |
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150
trumpet
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| n.喇叭，喇叭声；v.吹喇叭，吹嘘 | |
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151
deafening
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| adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式 | |
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152
sufficiently
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|
| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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153
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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154
consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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155
conversed
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的过去式 ) | |
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156
scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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157
patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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158
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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159
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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160
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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161
pier
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| n.码头；桥墩，桥柱；[建]窗间壁，支柱 | |
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162
bowler
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| n.打保龄球的人，（板球的）投（球）手 | |
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163
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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164
relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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165
symbolically
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| ad.象征地，象征性地 | |
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166
crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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167
foamed
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| 泡沫的 | |
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168
dominant
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|
| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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169
uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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170
dispersing
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| adj. 分散的 动词disperse的现在分词形式 | |
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171
leakage
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| n.漏，泄漏；泄漏物；漏出量 | |
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172
modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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173
autobiography
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| n.自传 | |
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174
virulently
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| 恶毒地，狠毒地 | |
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175
reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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176
discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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177
aberration
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| n.离开正路，脱离常规，色差 | |
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178
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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179
reticence
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| n.沉默，含蓄 | |
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180
pulsating
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|
| adj.搏动的，脉冲的v.有节奏地舒张及收缩( pulsate的现在分词 )；跳动；脉动；受（激情）震动 | |
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181
adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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182
emphatic
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| adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的 | |
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183
appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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184
throb
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| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
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185
harped
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| vi.弹竖琴（harp的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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186
relentlessly
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| adv.不屈不挠地；残酷地；不间断 | |
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187
evasion
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| n.逃避，偷漏(税) | |
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188
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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189
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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190
vindicate
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| v.为…辩护或辩解，辩明；证明…正确 | |
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191
abhor
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| v.憎恶；痛恨 | |
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192
loathing
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| n.厌恶，憎恨v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的现在分词)；极不喜欢 | |
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193
gorge
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| n.咽喉，胃，暴食，山峡；v.塞饱，狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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194
bellow
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| v.吼叫，怒吼；大声发出，大声喝道 | |
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195
scrawl
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| vt.潦草地书写；n.潦草的笔记，涂写 | |
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196
journalism
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| n.新闻工作，报业 | |
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197
erratic
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| adj.古怪的，反复无常的，不稳定的 | |
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198
deflected
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| 偏离的 | |
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199
encyclopedia
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| n.百科全书 | |
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200
maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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201
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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202
judicious
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| adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的 | |
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203
rumours
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| n.传闻( rumour的名词复数 )；风闻；谣言；谣传 | |
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204
outspoken
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| adj.直言无讳的，坦率的，坦白无隐的 | |
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205
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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206
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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207
impunity
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| n.(惩罚、损失、伤害等的)免除 | |
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208
vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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209
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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210
recalcitrant
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| adj.倔强的 | |
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211
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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212
canvass
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| v.招徕顾客，兜售；游说；详细检查，讨论 | |
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213
preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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214
consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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215
negotiations
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| 协商( negotiation的名词复数 )； 谈判； 完成（难事）； 通过 | |
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216
requiem
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| n.安魂曲，安灵曲 | |
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217
caption
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| n.说明，字幕，标题；v.加上标题，加上说明 | |
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218
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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219
plethora
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| n.过量，过剩 | |
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220
effete
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| adj.无生产力的，虚弱的 | |
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221
degenerate
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| v.退步，堕落；adj.退步的，堕落的；n.堕落者 | |
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222
decadents
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| n.颓废派艺术家（decadent的复数形式） | |
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223
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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224
portentously
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225
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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226
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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