here was nobody visible on Broadway
but gentlemen. I called everybody's attention to the fact, and it was
accounted for on the supposition that the late bank forgeries and
defalcations, growing out of the extravagance of womankind, had prompted
all the husbands to make of their homes nunneries.

We observed, however, close by every gentleman, something that resembled
a black dog with his tail curled over his back.

"Stuff!" said one, "they're hay wagons."

"No!" cried Lowe, "they're nothing of the sort; they are waterfalls, and
the ladies are, of course, invisible under them."

We accepted the explanation, and thought the trip very melancholy. No
landscape is complete without a woman. Very soon we struck the great
polar current, and passed Harlem river; the foliage of the trees, by
some strange anomaly, began to ascend towards us, but Lowe caught two
or three of the supposed leaves, and they proved to be greenbacks.

There was at once a tremendous sensation in the car; we knew that we
were on the track of Ketchum and his carpet-bag of bank-notes.

"Is there any reward out?" cried Lowe.

"Not yet!"

"Then we won't pursue him."

As we slowly drifted to the left, the Hudson shone through the trees,
and before dusk we swept across Lake Mahopec. I heard a voice singing to
the dip of oars, and had to be held down by five men to restrain an
involuntary impulse to quit my company.

"Townsend," said Lowe, "have you the copy of that matter you printed
about me in England? This is the time to call you to account for it. We
are two or three miles above _terra firma_, and I might like to drop you
for a parachute."

I felt Lowe's muscle, and knew myself secure. Then I unrolled the pages,
which I fortunately carried with me, and told him the following news
about himself:--

The aeronaut of the Army of the Potomac was Mr. S. T. C. Lowe; he had
made seven thousand ascensions, and his army companion was invariably
either an artist, a correspondent, or a telegrapher.

A minute insulated wire reached from the car to headquarters, and
McClellan was thus informed of all that could be seen within the
Confederate works. Sometimes they remained aloft for hours, making
observations with powerful glasses, and once or twice the enemy tested
their distance with shell.

On the 13th of April, the Confederates sent up a balloon, the first they
had employed, at which Lowe was infinitely amused. He said that it had
neither shape nor bu