being revolved at an enormous speed, and when my father came home and stopped the platform I staggered and reeled and fell in a heap at his feet. That is how I acquired my unfortunate stagger and unpleasant reel, and I have only told you this that you may have no unjust suspicions.”

26

“But why,” asked my wife, who had been greatly interested by Walsingham’s story, “do you not revolve in the opposite direction, and ‘unwind’ yourself, as we used to say?”

“Madame,” said Walsingham, “I have. Every night, for one hour before I go to bed I revolve, but it requires an immense number of revolutions to overcome such a spin as I had in my youth.” He waited a moment and then said: “But I am now ready to try the gyro-hat.”

I looked out of the window, and hesitated. A thin rain was falling, and was freezing as it fell, and I hated to have a good, silk, gyro-hat go out into such weather; but as a leading hatter I felt that it would never do for me to seem small and picayunish in regard to hats. I remembered that a really good silk hat should not be ruined by a few drops of water; and I saw that if anything could convince Anne and Walsingham that the gyro-hat held their happiness, it would be a trial on such slippery walks as the evening had provided.

So I brought down the hat and pressed it on Walsingham’s head. Instantly the vacuum creator began to27 work and the hat clung fast to his head. He arose to his feet and walked across the parlor in a perfectly steady manner, and out into the hall. I held open the front door and he stepped out.

27

Walsingham crossed the porch with as steady a tread as ever any man crossed the porch of a high-class hatter, but when he reached the top step his foot struck the ice and he slipped. He did not stagger nor reel. If he fell, he fell steadily. I can best liken his fall to the action of a limber reed when the wind strikes it. He inclined slowly, with his feet still on the top step, and continued to incline until his head touched the walk below with considerable violence, and then his feet slipped down the edges of the steps until they rested on the walk.

I never saw a more graceful fall, and I was about to congratulate Walsingham, when he began to incline toward the perpendicular again, in the same slow manner. But this was not the reason I held my words. The reason was that the gyro-hat and Walsingham were behaving in a most unaccountable manner. 

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