rvations,"
and persistently asking for "the readings," which the gentleman from
Cambridge occasionally protested his inability to supply, owing either
to Burnaby having his foot upon the aneroid, or to the Captain so
jamming him up against the side of the car that the accurate reading
of a scientific instrument was not only inconvenient but impossible.

When we began to chat and exchange confidences, the fascination which
balloon voyaging has for some people was testified to in a striking
manner. The gentleman from Cambridge had a mildness of manner about him
that made it difficult to conceive him engaged in any perilous
enterprise. Yet he had been in half a dozen balloon ascents, and had
posted up from his native town on hearing that a balloon was going up
from the Crystal Palace. As for Burnaby, it was borne in upon me, even
at this casual meeting, that it did not matter to him what enterprise
he embarked upon, so that it were spiced with danger and promised
adventure. He had some slight preference for ballooning, this being his
sixteenth ascent, including the time when the balloon burst, and the
occupants of the car came rattling down from a height of three thousand
feet, and were saved only by the fortuitous draping of the half emptied
balloon, which prevented all the gas from escaping.

At half-past six we were still passing over the Turkey carpet,
apparently of the same interminable pattern. Some miles ahead the level
stretch was broken by clumps of trees, which presently developed into
woods of considerable extent. It was growing dusk, and no town or
railway station was near. Burnaby, assured of being too late for his
dinner party, wanted to prolong the journey. But the farther the balloon
went the longer would be the distance over which it would have to be
brought back and Mr. Coxwell's assistant was commendably careful of his
employer's purse. On approaching Highwood the balloon passed over a
dense wood, in which there was some idea of descending. But finally the
open ground was preferred, and, the wood being left behind, a ploughed
field was selected as the place to drop, and the gas was allowed to
escape by wholesale. The balloon swooped downward at a somewhat
alarming pace, and if Barker had had all his wits about him he would
have thrown out half a bag of ballast and lightened the fall. But after
giving instructions for all to stoop down in the bottom of the car and
hold onto the ropes, he himself promptly