"Oh, come along!" said Gibberne.

We picked our way among the bath-chairs in the path. Many of
the people sitting in the chairs seemed almost natural in their
passive poses, but the contorted scarlet of the bandsmen was not
a restful thing to see. A purple-faced little gentleman was frozen
in the midst of a violent struggle to refold his newspaper against
the wind; there were many evidences that all these people in their
sluggish way were exposed to a considerable breeze, a breeze that
had no existence so far as our sensations went. We came out and
walked a little way from the crowd, and turned and regarded it.
To see all that multitude changed, to a picture, smitten rigid,
as it were, into the semblance of realistic wax, was impossibly
wonderful. It was absurd, of course; but it filled me with an irrational,
an exultant sense of superior advantage. Consider the wonder of it!
All that I had said, and thought, and done since the stuff had begun
to work in my veins had happened, so far as those people, so far
as the world in general went, in the twinkling of an eye. "The
New Accelerator--" I began, but Gibberne interrupted me.

"There's that infernal old woman!" he said.

"What old woman?"

"Lives next door to me," said Gibberne. "Has a lapdog that yaps.
Gods! The temptation is strong!"

There is something very boyish and impulsive about Gibberne at times.
Before I could expostulate with him he had dashed forward, snatched