CHAPTER II



I had been having considerable trouble with my wings. The day
after I helped the choir I made a dash or two with them, but was
not lucky. First off, I flew thirty yards, and then fouled an
Irishman and brought him down--brought us both down, in fact.
Next, I had a collision with a Bishop--and bowled him down, of
course. We had some sharp words, and I felt pretty cheap, to come
banging into a grave old person like that, with a million strangers
looking on and smiling to themselves.

I saw I hadn't got the hang of the steering, and so couldn't
rightly tell where I was going to bring up when I started. I went
afoot the rest of the day, and let my wings hang. Early next
morning I went to a private place to have some practice. I got up
on a pretty high rock, and got a good start, and went swooping
down, aiming for a bush a little over three hundred yards off; but
I couldn't seem to calculate for the wind, which was about two
points abaft my beam. I could see I was going considerable to
looard of the bush, so I worked my starboard wing slow and went
ahead strong on the port one, but it wouldn't answer; I could see I
was going to broach to, so I slowed down on both, and lit. I went
back to the rock and took another chance at it. I aimed two or
three points to starboard of the bush--yes, more than that--enough
so as to make it nearly a head-wind. I done well enough, but made
pretty poor time. I could see, plain enough, that on a head-wind,