…got up and tried to stand, but my — I couldn’t. The port had got into my head, my back, my knees — all over me — and I’m blessed if I didn’t tumble into my chair with a thud. Ten times I made the attempt and ten times I failed, growing feebler and feebler, and drowsier and drowsier after each effort.”If ever anyone underwent the sufferings of the damned I did then, for muddled and fuddled as I was, I retained for some moments sufficient intelligence to depict what would happen, if I failed to meet the sergeant. At length, however, sleep overcame me, and realising with a groan what was happening, I sank deep down in the soft folds of the luxurious easy chair, and lost consciousness.”When I came to myself it was dawn. A few straggling beams of cold grey light, pouring in through the light blinds,…

…I can fly. To substantiate my statement, I then climb on to the table or chair, spring off, and, with both feet together, rise to the ceiling, much to my own gratification and the edification of my audience.Bitter, indeed, is my chagrin when I awake and discover that I am as far off flying as ever. Again, many is the time I have dreamed I have been in a huge, empty house, pursued by some grotesque monstrosity that, after chasing me up endless staircases and along the most blood-curdling corridors, has at length cornered me in a gloomy top attic. All seems hopeless, and I am expecting to be caught every second, when, just as the dreadful creature bounds into the room, I leap on to the window-sill and, with a prodigious bound, spring into space. And then, joy of joys, instead of falling, I find I can fly —…