s with him. "Say, I'll tell you what. You get a
knife and cut that rope, and I'll go up." But the boy demurred. Anyhow,
he had no knife. So away dashed Stevens, and returned in a jiffy with a
knife, taken from his father's shop. It was a sharp one.

"There," panted the boy. "Now, cut her quick, soon as I climb in."

The people about were so occupied with the parley growing warm between
balloonist and police that few paid attention when a little shaver in
knickerbockers crept close to the basket and then slipped over its side.
But the next minute nine thousand people paid considerable attention and
shouted their surprise and delight as the eager balloon suddenly shot
skyward, a small white face peering down and trying not to look
frightened. The knife had done its work, and the subject of dispute,
abruptly removed, was presently soaring half a mile above the city,
drifting with the wind.

Meantime little Leo, curled up at the bottom of the car, was saying over
to himself a story he had read of two little babies who went up once in
a balloon and sailed far, far away and never came back, but they might
have come back if only they had been strong enough to pull a string that
hung over them. Hello! So there was a string to pull! Well, any boy
could pull a string. He wasn't a baby. But where was the old string? He
must look about and find it. And sure enough he did find it, only it
turned out to be a stout rope, and he tugged at it valiantly until the
valve opened and the balloon began to descend, just as the story-book
said it would. And so occupied was Leo with keeping this valve open that
he never once looked at the wide view spread beneath him, nor knew
where he was until he came bumping into a treetop, and found himself
upset among the branches, which first tore his clothes to tatters and
then dropped him into a muddy canal, whence he emerged a sadly battered
and bedraggled aeronaut, yet happy. And even when his mother chastised
him that evening with a ram-rod (his father being a gun-maker) he
remained serene, for had he not gone up in a balloon, and was not the
whole of Cleveland admiring him, and would he not go up again (he knew
he would, despite all promises made under ram-rod stress) as soon as the
chance presented?

And within a year the chance did present, a bait of fifty dollars per
ascension being offered the lad, and the outcome was he ran away from
home, and saw no more of his family until years had passed