The Steam-Driven Boy by John Sladek Page B

leaves sodden, dripping from some recent shower. Close behind these were slim volumes of poetry in green limp leather, blue burlap or brown wrapping paper; Sankey was surprised to find these needed as much effort as the rest to stay aloft. Behind them fluttered beautiful loose-leaf cookbooks and gay picture magazines.
    Here was all of literature, all of philosophy, all modern and ancient sciences, the sum of written thought. Sankey trained his binoculars on nearer titles that flashed by: Pascal’s
Pensées
in a small indigo volume; Whitman’s
Leaves of Grass
in olive green;
Rembrandt
in burnt umber;
Training the Collie
in white, and a small black pocket Bible. Here were the last living records of civilized man: almanacs, bank-books, address books, diaries, borrowed violet volumes from libraries. They fluttered and twinkled a thousand colours against the dimming sunlight (dimmed, he reminded himself, by other myriads like them): cheap paperback thrillers alongside
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
; Voltaire by Aquinas; Rabelais next to Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
    And now the crowds below were holding up their volumes, spread face-down across their forearms, lofting them to the stinging wind. With a great, deep applause of clattering pages, these thousands of books rose to join the flock above.
    ‘Wish we had something to send up,’ Sankey shouted over the noise.
    ‘Chequebooks! How about chequebooks?’
    The two grey-haired men brought out their black chequebooks and solemnly flung them to the breeze. The thin, awkward things soared for a moment uncertainly, then began to flap their leathern wings with great energy.
    ‘There must be something else,’ Preston complained.
    ‘Why not the draft of the report?’
    ‘Why not? Who would want to read it anyhow, now: “A Report on the Migrations of Educational Materials”.’
    They lifted the half-completed draft from Preston’s briefcase and balanced it a moment on the building’s parapet. The spring clip at one side held the pages in a sort of book form, Sankey supposed. It might work.
    ‘After you,’ he said, stepping back.
    Preston opened the batch of paper, lifted it like a shot putter and threw it straight out from the roof. It dipped, flapped shut and fell. Just as Sankey groaned, the bundle opened its wings once more, several floors below them, and began to fly.
    It climbed fast, a magnificent patch of white against the dark cloud. Through the binoculars Sankey watched it join its brethren and turn itself toward the south. It was soon out of sight.

T HE S INGULAR V ISITOR FROM N OT -Y ET
     
    W ITH AN A CCOUNT OF THE S UBSEQUENT
     
    L AMENTABLE D ECLINE OF D R L EMUEL J ONES
    To Jeremy Botford, Esq.
    Aug. 10, 1772
    Dear Jerry,
    It was with mixt feelings that I returned to London after all these years. The city is more splendid and horrid than ever; it is a sort of great Press, into which every kind of person has been tumbled, without the least regard for whether or not he is choaked with the stench of his neighbours.
    For my part, the only retreat offering succour from the noxious Crowd’s putrefaction is the coffee house. Of course I refer to Crutchwood’s in Clovebelly Lane, which you may fondly remember. It still affords an entertaining company, and I was surprized to remark several of our old number about the fire yet. Augustus Strathnaver has grown quite stout and dropsical, but his Wit is lean and ready as ever. Dick Blackadder is still soliciting subscriptions for his translations of Ovid: he is still soliciting in vain: and he is still of good chear about it. I learned that poor Oliver Colquhoun, who never could get his play tried in Drury Lane, is dead.
    But I was attended by the greatest astonishment when I apprehended a gross figure in a snuff-coloured coat seated next the fire with its back to the company.
    The figure turned to regard me, presenting its great warthog’s face. When its mouth opened, ’twas like the splitting of a steamed pudding.