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. . . . But
before we could even begin to run the action of the drug had ceased.
It was the business of a minute fraction of a second. The effect of
the New Accelerator passed like the drawing of a curtain, vanished in
the movement of a hand. I heard Gibberne's voice in infinite alarm.
"Sit down," he said, and flop, down upon the turf at the edge of the
Leas I sat--scorching as I sat. There is a patch of burnt grass
there still where I sat down. The whole stagnation seemed to wake
up as I did so, the disarticulated vibration of the band rushed
together into a blast of music, the promenaders put their feet down
and walked their ways, the papers and flags began flapping, smiles
passed into words, the winker finished his wink and went on his
way complacently, and all the seated people moved and spoke.

The whole world had come alive again, was going as fast as we were,
or rather we were going no faster than the rest of the world. It was
like slowing down as one comes into a railway station. Everything
seemed to spin round for a second or two, I had the most transient
feeling of nausea, and that was all. And the little dog which had
seemed to hang for a moment when the force of Gibberne's arm was
expended fell with a swift acceleration clean through a lady's parasol!