number. One, a German, known as the Professor Heinrich von
Schalckenberg, was half buried in the recesses of a huge arm-chair, from
the depths of which he perused the pages of the _Science Monthly_,
smoking meanwhile a pipe with a huge elaborately carved meerschaum bowl
and a long cherry-wood stem. From the ferocious manner in which he
glared through his spectacles at the pages of the magazine, from the
impatience with which he from time to time dashed his disengaged hand
through the masses of his iron-grey hair, and from the frequent
ejaculations of "Pish!" "Psha!" "Ach!" and so on which escaped his
lips, accompanied by vast volumes of smoke, it seemed evident that he
was not altogether at one with the author whose article he was perusing.
He was an explorer and a scientist.

Near the Herr Professor there reclined upon a divan the form of Sir
Reginald Elphinstone, sometimes called by his friends "the handsome
baronet," said to be _the_ richest commoner in England. At the age of
thirty-five, having freely exposed himself to all known sources of
peril, except those involved in a trip to the Polar regions, in his
eager pursuit of sport and adventure, Sir Reginald seemed, for the
moment, to have no object left him in life but to shoot as many rings as
possible of cigar-smoke through each other, as he lay there on the divan
in an attitude more easy than elegant.

Square in front of the fire, dreamily puffing at his cigar and
apparently studying the merits of a painting hanging behind him, and on
the reflected image of which in the mirror before him his eyes lazily
rested, sat Cyril Lethbridge, ex-colonel of the Royal Engineers, a
successful gold-seeker, and almost everything else to which a spice of
adventure could possibly attach itself.

And next him again, on the side of the fire-place opposite to the Herr
Professor, lounged Lieutenant Edward Mildmay, R.N.

The lieutenant was skimming through the daily papers. Presently he
looked up and remarked to the colonel:

"I see that some Frenchmen have been making experiments in the
navigation of balloons."

"Ah, indeed!" responded the colonel, with his head thrown critically on
one side, and his eyes still fixed on the reflection of the picture.
"And with what result?"

"Oh, failure, of course."

"And failure it always will be. The thing is simply an impossibility,"
remarked the colonel.

"No, bardon me, colonel, id is not an imbossibilidy by any means."

T