knife about through the air, but that's certainly what I've been doing. I'll have to wait till the wind stops before I can expect my body to act as a magnet and attract the knife toward me."
William was right. It was indeed the wind made by his movements that blew the knife irregularly through the air; for after he had waited a few minutes, and the air became calm again, the knife slowly ceased its movements and came to a rest in mid-air.
"Now it's going to fall toward me," muttered our hero, under his breath, remaining perfectly still to avoid causing new currents. But, to his surprise, although he waited quite a little while after the air had become still again, the knife remained in the identical spot where it had come to rest, about six feet away from him.
"I can't understand this at all," said William, considerably puzzled. "I'm positively certain that, by the laws of physics, that knife ought to fall toward me. And yet it does n't. Of course I know that it won't fall toward me as fast as a knife usually falls to the ground, but it ought to fall toward me at some speed. The rule they taught us at school was that "the attraction of bodies is directly in proportion to their masses." That is to
