I threw myself into it lightly and carelessly. I immediately noticed the ceiling. I made an instinctive movement forward. The window and a momentary glimpse of the wooded hills beyond shot upwards and disappeared. The carpet flashed across my eyes, and I caught sight of my own boots vanishing beneath me at the rate of about two hundred miles an hour. I made a convulsive effort to recover them. I suppose I over-did it. I saw the whole of the room at once, the four walls, the ceiling, and the floor at the same moment. It was a sort of vision. I saw the cottage piano upside down, and I again saw my own boots flash past me, this time over my head, soles uppermost. Never before had I been in a position where my own boots had seemed so all-pervading. The next moment I lost my boots, and stopped the carpet with my head just as it was rushing past me. At the same instant something hit me violently in the small of the back. Reason, when recovered, suggested that my assailant must be the rocking-chair. Investigation proved the surmise correct. Fortunately I was still alone, and in consequence was able, a few minutes later, to meet my hostess with calm and dignity. I said nothing about the rocking-chair. As a matter of fact, I was hoping to have the pleasure, before I went, of seeing some other guest arrive and sample it: I had purposely replaced it in the most prominent and convenient position. But though I felt capable of schooling myself to silence, I found myself unable to agree with my hostess when she called for my admiration of the thing. My recent experiences had too deeply embittered me. “Willie made it himself,” explained the fond mother. “Don’t you think it was very clever of him?” “Oh yes, it was clever,” I replied, “I am willing to admit that.” “He made it out of some old beer barrels,” she continued; she seemed proud of it. My resentment, though I tried to keep it under control, was mounting higher. “Oh! did he?” I said; “I should have thought he might have found something better to do with them.” “What?” she asked. “Oh! well, many things,” I retorted. “He might have filled them again with beer.” My hostess looked at me astonished. I felt some reason for my tone was expected. “You see,” I explained, “it is not a well-made chair. These rockers are too short, and they are too curved, and one of them, if you notice, is higher than the other and of a smaller radius; the back is at too obtuse an angle. When it is occupied the centre of gravity becomes—” My hostess interrupted me. “You have been sitting on it,” she said. “Not for long,” I assured her. Her tone changed. She became apologetic. “I am so sorry,” she said. “It looks all right.”