After this, while they were drinking their coffee and liqueurs, and the men were smoking their cigars in the deck-chamber, a score of the most distinguished men and women in the United States experienced the novel sensation of sitting quietly in deck-chairs while they were being hurled at the rate of a hundred and fifty miles an hour through the atmosphere.
They ran up to Niagara, dropped to within a few feet of the surface of the Falls, passed over them, fell to the Rapids, and drifted down them within a couple of yards of the raging waters.

Then in an instant they leapt up into the clouds, dropped again, and took a slanting course for Washington at a speed incredible, but to them quite imperceptible, save for the blurred rush of the half-visible earth behind them.
That night the _Astronef_ rested again in front of the steps of the White House, and Lord and Lady Redgrave were the guests at a semi-official banquet given by the newly re-elected President.

The speech of the evening was made by the President himself in proposing the health of the bride and bridegroom, and this is the way he ended: "There is something more in the ceremony which we have been privileged to witness than the union of a man and a woman in the bonds of holy matrimony.

Lord Redgrave, as you know, is the descendant of one of the noblest and most ancient families in the Motherland of New Nations.

Lady Redgrave is the daughter of the oldest and, I hope I may be allowed to say without offence, the greatest of those nations.