Chapter 1: Section 1: Page 9: Line 86-88

 "Do not imagine," Lindsay instructed, "that in coming aboard Inconvenience you have escaped into any realm of the counterfactual. There may not be mangrove swamps or lynch law up here, but we must nonetheless live with the constraints of the given world, notable among them the decrease in temperature with altitude. Eventually your sensitivities in that regard should moderate, and in the meantime"—tossing him a foul-weather cloak of black Japanese goatskin with C. OF C. PROPERTY stenciled in bright yellow on the back—"this is to be considered as a transitional garment only, until such time as you adapt to these altitudes and, if fortunate, learn the lessons of unpremeditated habitude among them."

* * * * * * * * * *

In other words, this isn't The Twilight Zone, bub. Things may seem fantastic or supranormal flying up in the sky but it's still the same world as that which occurs below and in the rest of the book. This may be a warning not just to Chick but to the reader. Pynchon is noting that while things are definitely different than the world of the reader, they aren't different in a fantastical, higgledy-piggledy way. Yes, there were almost certainly not battalions of young boys flying airships about the world having adventures. But at least they're not riding dragons! And while some of their adventures might push the boundaries of what we know as fact, they retain their believability of the 1893 world and the lower limits of the knowledge and the upper limits of the imagination of the people of the time.

Also, Lindsay might just be making small talk about his favorite thing in the world: rules. "Don't get it into your head that we're up here to engage in raw hedonism above the clouds, ignoring the basic and decent societal laws of mankind! We follow rules too!"

Or maybe Lindsay just figures Chick is an idiot. "Natural law same, you understand. Same-same down below as up above. Different but same!"

Lindsay is a jerk.

Whoops! That was what I had to say on just Line 86 before I remembered that I'm grouping all lines which appear in the same quotations as one blog entry! So let's dive into the rest of Lindsay's rant!

It seems like Lindsay is just using the temperatures decrease with altitude constraint of the world as a metaphor for all the other rules Lindsay expects Chick to learn to habitude among. The Japanese coat (does the C. OF C. PROPERTY label the coat or the boy in the coat?) is an example of Chick's provisional status among the boys. They will allow some leeway for Chick's ignorance of the rules, as the coat gives him some leeway to remain comfortable in large temperature shifts, but he must, at some point, be able to perform his duties sans jacket and sans managerial oversight.

Plus he might just be informing Chick about how cold it gets. Although does it make much sense to indicate that the Chums of Chance should do their duty in the sky without jackets to protect from the cold? That's why it must be a metaphor! I'm sure the lads wear jackets all the time, as needed!