with us. So there you would be, shut up in Paris and separated from
us, for months.

"No, no, Tim, the matter is altogether impossible. You stay quietly
here and, in ten days or a fortnight--if all goes well--we shall be
back again with you."

"And is it in a balloon you're thinking of coming out, Mister
Ralph; flying like a bird through the air? Och, wirra, wirra! I'll
never see yees again."

"Nonsense, Tim, there's no danger in a balloon. If getting in were
no more dangerous than getting out, there would not be much peril
in the matter."

"Ah, Mister Ralph dear, how can you be risking your life, and the
life of your brother in that way? Shooting at a Prussian, or
getting shot at, is all well enough; or going among them with your
hair all puffed out, and your face painted brown, and the hair
growing all over your face before its time, I say nothing against;
but flying through the air, in a balloon, is just tempting the good
Providence. I know what it will be. You'll be just touching against
a cloud, and tumbling out, and breaking yourselves into
smithereens; and nothing to take home to your dear father and
mother, not to mention Miss Milly," and Tim fairly blubbered with
grief, at the thought.

The boys had great difficulty in pacifying the attached fellow; at
last, with a face expressive of mournful resignation, he agreed to
remain with Colonel Tempe until they returned; or until their
prolonged absence rendered it likely that they would not return at
all--Tim evidently making up his mind that the latter contingency
would happen. In that case, as Tim--now his corps had ceased to
exist--need no longer serve, he expressed his determination to
return to Dijon; and to stay with Captain Barclay until the end of
the war--as he should not, he said, have the heart to fight any
more, when his masters were both killed.

While the conversation had been going on, the boys had continued
their toilettes. The preparation which they had obtained gave them
an olive complexion; and their transformation was now so complete
that the boys would have passed each other unknown, even had they
looked steadily at each other. Ralph, especially, was utterly
unlike himself.

They now told Tim to go out and get his breakfast, and to return in
two hours' time; and then started themselves, rounding their
shoulders, and so narrowing their chests as much as possible. Ralph
stopped at an optician's, bought a pair of slightly-colored
specta