I gave him my word of honour.

“Very well,” he continued, lifting a small metal box from one of the tables, and patting it with his hand.  “I have been working at the subject of aerial navigation for well-nigh thirty years, and this is the result.”

I looked at the metal case, but could see nothing remarkable about it.

“It seems a little thing, hardly worth a few pence, and yet how much I have paid for it!” said the inventor, with a sigh, and a far-away expression in his eyes.  “Many a time it has reminded me of the mouse’s nest that was turned up by the ploughshare.

    “‘Thy wee bit heap o’ strae and stibble
      Has cost thee mony a weary nibble.’

Of course this is only a model.”

“A model of a flying machine?” I inquired, in a tone of surprise.

“You may call it so,” he answered; “but it is a flying machine that does not fly or soar in the strict sense of the words, for it has neither wings nor aeroplane.  It is, in fact, an aerial locomotive, as you will see.”

While he spoke, Mr. Carmichael opened the case of the instrument, and adjusted the mechanism inside.  Immediately afterwards, to my astonishment, the box suddenly left his hands, and flew, or rather glided, swiftly through the air, and must have dashed itself against the wall of the laboratory had not its master run and caught it.

“Wonderful!” I exclaimed, forgetting the attitude of caution and reserve which I had deemed it prudent to adopt.

The inventor laughed with childish glee, enjoying his triumph, and stroking the case as though it were a kitten.

“It would be off again if I would let it.  Whoa, there!” said he, again adjusting the mechanism.  “I can make it rise, or sink, or steer, to one side or the other, just as I please.  If you will kindly hold it for a minute, I will make it go up to the ceiling.  Don’t be afraid, it won’t bite you.”

I took the uncanny little instrument in my hands, whilst Mr. Carmichael ascended a ladder to a kind of loft in the shed.  It only weighed a few pounds, and yet I could feel it exerting a strong force to escape.

“Ready!” cried the inventor, “now let go,” and sure enough, the box rose steadily upwards until it came within his grasp.  “I am going to send it down to you again,” he continued, and I expected to see it drop like a stone to the ground; but, strange to say, it circled gracefully through the air in a spiral curve, and landed gently at my feet.

“You see I have entire control over it,” said Mr. Carmichael, rejoining me; “but all you have seen has taken place in air, and you might, therefore, suppose that I have an air propellor inside, and that air is necessary to react against it, like water against the screw of a steamboat, in order to produce the motion.  I will now show you that air is not required, and that my locomotive works quite as well in a vacuum.”

So saying, he put the model under a large bell-jar, from which he exhausted the air with a pump; and even then it moved about with as much alacrity and freedom as it had done in the atmosphere.