held it were cut, and the huge machine floated aloft with the
aeronaut and the basket containing the bottle and the rabbit, and the
music sounded, and all the people cried, "Hurrah!"

"This is a wonderful passage, up into the air!" thought the Bottle;
"this is a new way of sailing; at any rate, up here we cannot strike
upon anything."

Thousands of people gazed up at the balloon, and the old maid looked
up at it also; she stood at the open window of the garret, in which
hung the cage with the little chaffinch, who had no water-glass as
yet, but was obliged to be content with an old cup. In the window
stood a myrtle in a pot; and it had been put a little aside that it
might not fall out, for the old maid was leaning out of the window to
look, and she distinctly saw the aeronaut in the balloon, and how he
let down the rabbit in the parachute, and then drank to the health of
all the spectators, and at length hurled the bottle high in the air;
she never thought that this was the identical bottle which she had
already once seen thrown aloft in honour of her and of her friend on
the day of rejoicing in the greenwood, in the time of her youth.

The bottle had no respite for thought; for it was quite startled at
thus suddenly reaching the highest point in its career. Steeples and
roofs lay far, far beneath, and the people looked like mites.

But now it began to descend with a much more rapid fall than that of
the rabbit; the bottle threw somersaults in the air, and felt quite
young, and quite free and unfettered; and yet it was half full of
wine, though it did not remain so long. What a journey! The sun shone
on the bottle, all the people were looking at it, the balloon was
already far away, and soon the bottle was far away too; for it fell
upon a roof and broke; but the pieces had got such an impetus that
they could not stop themselves, but went jumping and rolling on till
they came down into the courtyard and lay there in smaller pieces yet;
the bottle-neck only managed to keep whole, and that was cut off as
clean as if it had been done with a diamond.

"That would do capitally for a bird-glass," said the cellarmen; but
they had neither a bird nor a cage; and to expect them to provide both
because they had found a bottle-neck that might be made available for
a glass, would have been expecting too much; but the old maid in the
garret, perhaps it might be useful to her; and now the bottle-neck was
taken up to her, and was