"Friction of the air," I shouted. "Friction of the air. Going too
fast. Like meteorites and things. Too hot. And, Gibberne! Gibberne!
I'm all over pricking and a sort of perspiration. You can see people
stirring slightly. I believe the stuff's working off! Put that dog
down."
"Eh?" he said.
"It's working off," I repeated. "We're too hot and the stuff's
working off! I'm wet through."
He stared at me. Then at the band, the wheezy rattle of whose
performance was certainly going faster. Then with a tremendous sweep
of the arm he hurled the dog away from him and it went spinning
upward, still inanimate, and hung at last over the grouped parasols
of a knot of chattering people. Gibberne was gripping my elbow.
"By Jove!" he cried. "I believe--it is! A sort of hot pricking
and--yes. That man's moving his pocket-handkerchief! Perceptibly.
We must get out of this sharp."
But we could not get out of it sharply enough. Luckily, perhaps!
For we might have run, and if we had run we should, I believe,
have burst into flames. Almost certainly we should have burst into
flames! You know we had neither of us thought of that.
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