The Mammoth Book of New Comic Fantasy

by Mike Ashley

  He rang off abruptly. Already his manner smacked of a rather arrogant baron terminating an audience with a couple of rather scurvy knaves.

  Next morning we were met in the hall by Mrs Corpusty, now quite at home with the high priestess stuff.

  “Mr Corpusty is in his study,” she whispered. She just didn’t refer to him as “The Master”. “He is just meditating and gaining strength. It’s a terrible strain on him.”

  What with all the talk and Corpusty’s personal magnetism I half believed it already by the time we collected in the garden, and I could see that Clarence certainly, who had seen it once, was not in the least sceptical.

  Five minutes later I was completely bewildered. For Mr Corpusty, shutting his eyes and looking very intense, definitely raised himself about a foot above the ground and then floated slowly like a large balloon down the length of the garden. He apparently had a little difficulty at first, but it seemed that as our belief in him increased, so he found it easier. There was no deception at all, we passed sticks all round and under him; he was absolutely clear of the ground. We were both as convinced as Mrs Corpusty had always been, and the laws of gravitation seemed a thing of the past. If faith could move Corpusty like this, a whole range of Alps would be child’s play.

  “Wonderful! Wonderful!” we ejaculated. “Can you control your movements?”

  “Yes,” answered Mr Corpusty with shut eyes, “by willing it. Watch! I shall now turn to the left.” He did so and, smashing into the garden wall, bounded off like a football. Undeterred, he turned right again and floated devastatingly down a line of delphiniums.

  “Go up higher, dear!” called his wife, with the utmost faith in her lord’s abilities. “You’re breaking the flowers.” She spoke as if she were merely telling him not to walk on the grass, instead of asking him to float a good five feet above the ground level.

  Mr Corpusty went up higher. Then he suddenly called: “Quick! Catch me! I can’t keep it up much longer.”

  We ran and I was cleverly just slow enough to allow Clarence to catch most of him. Corpusty is not what you’d call a catchable man.

  “It’s a strain,” panted Corpusty, when we had excavated Clarence from the flower bed.

  Clarence was understood to corroborate this.

  “You must practise a bit more,” I said excitedly.

  “Yes, but the trouble is that at present I have to keep my eyes shut to concentrate and I can’t see where I’m going. I don’t want to float into Mullins’ garden and give away the secret till I’m ready.”

  We solved this by tying him to a tree with a cord. Then we sat underneath and discussed the matter earnestly while Corpusty hovered around, making little practice flights like an enormous captive balloon. Mrs Corpusty already took her husband’s wonderful accomplishment for granted and went calmly on with her knitting, merely saying at intervals:

  “Mind the geraniums, dear!” or “Don’t float so high, Henry! Mullins will see you over the wall!”

  Towards the end of the morning Corpusty was able to open his eyes and by concentrating, he told us, on the idea of flying and moving his hands as in swimming, he was able to make very passable and well-aimed flights. His landings, however, were not so hot. By lunch time the garden looked as though a couple of R.A.F. squadrons had been driven down out of control.

  Clarence and I stayed on to lunch and over a celebratory bottle of champagne we formed ourselves into an unofficial company to exploit Corpusty. Finally, Clarence, whose ideas ranged from selling him to the War Office to going on tour with a circus, suggested that the only thing to do really was to give public exhibitions, and as a preliminary to this to secure someone of established reputation as a certified witness.

  “Yes,” agreed Corpusty, “and the more matter-of-fact the fellow is, the better. Not one of these chaps who believe in everything.” He raised himself playfully several inches from the seat of his chair as he spoke, but we begged him not to do it again. At 11 a.m. one doesn’t mind, but after a celebratory lunch one simply isn’t prepared for it.

  After discussion we settled on Sir James Blaker, who had a name for disbelieving everything he could not touch, or see, or hear – and most things that he could. If we could get him on our side first, then we should have little trouble with the others.

  We went to him and at last persuaded him, though completely sceptical, to come to an audition in Corpusty’s garden in four days’ time. Corpusty was to spend the intervening time in practising his stuff, and he went at it in such determined fashion that by the third day he could glide about in a style something between that of Peter Pan and a Zeppelin.

  The night before the great day we dined together at Corpusty’s house, to drink to the success of “Birdmen Limited”. Mrs Corpusty, I’m glad to say, was away for a few days – which was as well, for we certainly dined rather heavily. Corpusty in particular, in anticipation of next day’s triumph, produced some Château-bottled Lafette and two bottles of Dow’s ’04. He drank most of it himself, but not purposely; one just had to be quite quick off the mark with Corpusty.

  It was the Dow’s which was responsible. That and the new sense of power took Corpusty completely by storm, and he became a little unmanageable. We didn’t mind much, till later in the evening he began to talk about going out and showing the world that he could fly; and then we began to get frightened.

  “Wait till tomorrow,” we suggested anxiously.

  “Tomorrow never comes,” answered Corpusty, as one discovering a world truth. “Must show chaps now. Look!” He floated upwards to the middle of the room. As he had omitted to change from his sitting position the effect was ludicrous.

  “Come down,” shouted Clarence.

  “Shan’t,” said Mr Corpusty like a naughty child. He triumphantly went up higher, cracked his head against the ceiling, lost his will-control, and came down with a crash on the table.

  We picked him out of the débris. He was murmuring, “Nasty fall! Very nasty fall!” and was still muttering when a scared manservant appeared.

  He told the fellow to go to bed and not to bother about us. We already had an uneasy feeling that we were going to have a little trouble with Corpusty.

  “That’s your fault,” I said severely when the man had gone with a half smile.

  “Norrabitofit! Must have slipped!” announced our host, and before we could stop him he had insisted on going up to the ceiling again to look for the banana skin, which he said someone must have carelessly left there.

  We hooked him down with an umbrella and held him for a while, till he promised to be good.

  He was quiet for about ten minutes but his fall had evidently muddled him badly about the laws of gravity, because when his napkin slid off his knees he flew rapidly up to the ceiling to pick it up, and then got anchored in some inextricable way in the electric-light flex. We released him at last, but it was like getting an angry blue bottle off a fly paper, complicated by the fact that we didn’t trust Corpusty’s will power sufficiently to stand anywhere directly underneath. It was after this that Clarence sent me downstairs to get some rope. We felt we couldn’t rim the risk of losing him, or of letting the secret out.

  I was halfway up again when I heard a crash of glass and a shout. I ran and found Clarence standing at the front door.

  “Quick! Quick, he’s gone!”

  “Where?”

  “He went out while I was locking the dining-room door. I thought the window was shut, but he evidently thought it was open. Anyhow, the result is he’s out. We must get him at once . . . Ah, there he is!”

  We darted down the steps to where a vague enormous shape was swooping about in the air outside. A voice came from it. “Must show chaps!” it announced happily.

  “Come down, Corpusty, you old fool,” called Clarence angrily. Luckily the hour was late and so the street, a quiet one, was empty.

  Mr Corpusty, in the position of a swimmer using the breast stroke, descended to just out of our reach and said:


  “Whaffor?”

  “You’ll give the secret away.”

  “No, I shan’t. No one here. Must practise. See! I can do everything.” He levitated slowly up till he was on a level with the roofs of the houses. At this height something seemed to catch his eye in a bedroom window with the blind undrawn and he rolled over to a sitting position like a porpoise and proceeded to gaze earnestly within, with an expression on his face as of a young man in a musical comedy stall.

  “Damned old idiot!” Clarence almost sobbed in his fury. “He’ll start something now if he’s not careful.” Corpusty looked down and with a total lack both of decency and knowledge of the circumstances beckoned ecstatically to us to come up and have a look too.

  “Heavens!” said Clarence. “Throw a brick at him.”

  We got him third shot somewhere in the under-carriage, and with a yelp he volplaned swiftly along the street, luckily at such height as to be almost invisible from below.

  We raced along and at the corner met the first person we had seen. Of all people it was a policeman.

  “’Ullo! ’Ullo, what’s all this ’ere?” he observed suspiciously; then noticing that we were hatless, breathless, and that one was carrying a rope, added: “Where are you two off to?”

  “A little stroll,” I said innocently.

  “Ho! And do you live near here, then?”

  “Not far,” began Clarence, when a sepulchral voice from the air said:

  “Evenin’ all!”

  The constable looked quickly behind him. Then he looked up and down the street. Then he looked sternly at a nearby garden. Finally, he looked at us even more suspiciously.

  Thank heaven we both had had the presence of mind not to look up, to where now floating like a small Zeppelin six feet above the constable’s head, was Corpusty in the position of a Roman diner reclining at ease.

  The policeman looked undecided for a moment then took out his notebook. As he flicked its pages over, Corpusty laughed vinously. The constable passed in mid-flick and fixed us with a stern glance.

  “You better be careful,” he said.

  “Look here,” began Clarence. “We’re not doing anything wrong. Just walking about! We . . .”

  That moment, unfortunately, was the one chosen by Corpusty to change his position in the air and, like Jupiter visiting Danaë, a shower of small coins fell out of his pockets upon the astonished constable.

  Properly transferred the coins might conceivably have had a good effect. But money coming like manna from heaven – down the neck instead of into a receptive palm – was an outrageous attempt at bribery.

  “Name and address, please?” snapped the man, and with sinking hearts we heard the slow approaching footfall of yet another policeman.

  I must say Corpusty, above himself though he was, saved us. We saw him go up higher – to get a bit of a run, so to speak – and then he dropped squarely in a sitting position on the constable’s helmet, burying him in it down to the moustache. We at once took to our heels, while the neatly bonneted bobby struggled blindly and his comrade ran to his assistance. Mr Corpusty with the air of a terrier joining in a game, skimmed easily above our heads, giving encouraging advice as to the position, movements and language of the enemy.

  But we had not too much of a start on the second policeman, and to have re-entered the house unobserved would have been impossible.

  Our protective air screen, however, was up to it. He turned and flew straight at our pursuer just about the height of his face. It was too much even for the Metropolitan police force. The man called in sharp tones on Providence, ducked, sat down abruptly, and clung to a lamp-post, passing his hand across his eyes.

  Corpusty, very pleased with himself, rejoined us with a leisurely side stroke at the door, and we got safely in. He said he was tired and wouldn’t fly any more, but we took no risks. We put him to bed, lashed him there, and spent the night in the spare room.

  We didn’t untie him till Mrs Corpusty returned next morning, and even then we watched him till Sir James Blaker came at three o’clock. I must say he looked rather the worse for wear. Night flying is always a strain.

  Sir James listened to our claims with a sceptical smile. He seemed about the hardest person to convince I have ever seen. He irradiated disbelief. At the end of our statements all he said was: “Well, gentlemen, seeing’s believing.”

  This was Corpusty’s cue. He gathered himself together and made an intense effort. At first we thought he wasn’t going to do it because of the atmosphere of cynical disbelief emanating from Sir James Blaker, and we willed frantically to help him, till at last he got going. But he had barely raised himself an imperceptible inch, when Sir James said abruptly: “I knew it was absurd. No man can fly by the mere exercise of will.”

  At once Corpusty wavered and came down again. “But look,” we cried, “he was just doing it,” and Sir James said, “Nonsense.”

  Corpusty shut his eyes and we could all feel the effort he made. But nothing happened. Those disbelieving remarks had proved too strong.

  The interview naturally was a fiasco and Sir James was inclined to be very difficult till Corpusty had some kind of a fit, due, Sir James intimated nastily, to port. Then he went, thanking us pointedly for an interesting morning.

  Corpusty never flew again. The ability had depended on his own unquestioning belief in his success, and Sir James had made him doubt it for the first time. He could never, therefore, forget that he had once failed, and so his faith was never again absolute.

  And so we shall never now be able to get anyone to believe what we have honestly seen. At times we feel that if we could only get hold of those two policemen: at other times we feel that they may still be wanting even more fervently to get hold of us . . .

  THE GREAT WISH SYNDICATE

  John Kendrick Bangs

  The farm had gone to ruin. On every side the pastures were filled with a rank growth of thistles and other thorn-bearing flora. The farm buildings had fallen into a condition of hopeless disrepair, and the old house, the ancestral home of the Wilbrahams, had become a place of appalling desolation. The roof had been patched and repatched for decades, and now fulfilled none of the ideals of its roofhood save that of antiquity. There was not, as far as the eye could see, a single whole pane of glass in any one of the many windows of the mansion, and there were not wanting those in the community who were willing to prophesy that in a stiff gale – such as used to be prevalent in that section of the world, and within the recollection of some of the old settlers too – the chimneys, once the pride of the county, would totter and fall, bringing the whole mansion down into chaos and ruin. In short, the one-time model farm of the Wilbrahams had become a byword and a jest and, as some said, of no earthly use save for the particular purposes of the eccentric artist in search of picturesque subject-matter for his studies in oil.

  It was a wild night, and within the ancient house sat the owner, Richard Wilbraham, his wife not far away, trying to find room upon her husband’s last remaining pair of socks to darn them. Wilbraham gazed silently into the glowing embers on the hearth before them, the stillness of the evening broken only by the hissing of the logs on the and irons and an occasional sigh from one of the watchers.

  Finally the woman spoke.

  “When does the mortgage fall due, Richard?” she asked, moving uneasily in her chair.

  “Tomorrow,” gulped the man, the word seeming to catch in his throat and choke him.

  “And you – you are sure Colonel Digby will not renew it?” she queried.

  “He even declines to discuss the matter,” said Wilbraham. “He contents himself with shaking it in my face every time I approach his office, while he tells his office-boy to escort me to the door. I don’t believe in signs, Ethelinda, but I do believe that that is an omen that if the money is not forthcoming at noon tomorrow you and I will be roofless by this time tomorrow night.”

  The woman shuddered.

  “But, Richard,” she protested, “y
ou – you had put by the money to pay it long ago. What has become of it?”

  “Gone, Ethelinda – gone in that ill-advised egg deal I tried to put through two years ago,” sighed Wilbraham, as he buried his face in his hands to hide his grief and mortification. “I sold eggs short,” he added. “You remember when that first batch of incubator hens began laying so prolifically – it seemed to me as though Fortune stared me in the face – nay, held out her hands to me and bade me welcome to a share in her vast estates. There was a great shortage of eggs in the market that year, and I went to New York and sold them by the dozens – hundreds of dozens – thousands of dozens –”

  He rose up from his chair and paced the floor in an ecstasy of agitation. “I sold eggs by the million, Ethelinda,” he went on, by a great effort regaining control of himself. “Eggs to be laid by hens whose great-great-great-grandmothers had yet to be hatched from eggs yet unlaid by unborn chickens.”

  Wilbraham’s voice sank to a hoarse, guttural whisper.

  “And the deliveries have bankrupted me,” he muttered. “The price of eggs has risen steadily for the past eighteen months, and yesterday a hundred thousand of January, strictly fresh, that I had to put in the open market in order to fill my contracts, cost me not only my last penny, but were in part paid for with a sixty-day note that I cannot hope to meet. In other words, Ethelinda, we are ruined.”

  The woman made a brave effort to be strong, but the strain was too much for her tired nerves and she broke down and wept bitterly.

  “We have but four hens left,” Wilbraham went on, speaking in a hollow voice. “At most, working them to their full capacity, in thirty days from now we shall have only ten dozen eggs added to our present store, and upon that date I have promised to deliver to the International Cold Storage Company one thousand dozen at twenty-two and a half cents a dozen. Even with the mortgage out of the way we should still be securely bound in the clutch of bankruptcy.”