ough! Passing over St. Paul's--suggest
to fellow passenger that with a bomb, or better still a pistol, one
could "pot" the Dome. Passenger (funny man) says, "Why not try a
para_shoot_?" I laugh heartily, and nearly fall over side. Aeronaut,
roughly, "wishes to goodness I'd keep still." _I_ wish to goodness
he'd make the Balloon keep still--don't say this, however.

Somewhere over Essex. See distant sea. Aeronaut says, "There's no end
of a wind springing up." Heavens! Believe we are drifting out to
sea! But I didn't want to "assist progress of _Naval_ Science"--only
"Military." Tell Aeronaut this. He says, he's "just going down." Talks
as if he were "going down" to breakfast--after "getting up," as we
have done! Rather a good joke for mid-air. But is it mid-air? We are
descending rapidly. Digestion this time left up in clouds. Tearing
along over fields. Balloon pitching and tossing violently. Grapnel
thrown out. Catches a cow. Cow runs with us. Idiot! Why can't it stand
steady?

Awful crash! Bump, bang, whack! Balloon explodes with fearful report.
Yet no reporters present! Remember nothing more. Wake up, and find
myself in Hospital of an Essex town. Query--Have I, or have I not,
"assisted the progress of Military Science?"

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

_The Marsh King's Daughter._ One of WARNE & CO.'S publications for
children's amusement, but the illustrations by JESSIE CURRIE are
too highly curried, or rather coloured, and the effect is hard and
theatrical. By the way, Miss CURRIE'S genius is a trifle wilful;
for example, take this situation, which she has chosen to
illustrate,--"She ... pointed to a horse. He mounted upon it, and she
sprang before him, and held tightly by the mane." Now, asks the Baron,
taking for granted the "sprang" is for "sprang up," how would ordinary
talent depict this scene? Why, certainly, by showing the girl mounted
on the horse, holding on by the mane in front of the man, and the man
up behind. Not so Miss CURRIE. She puts the good man--apparently
an Amateur Monk--astride the horse, and she riding behind, holding
lightly as it appears, with one hand the broad red crupper, and, with
the other, probably, some portion of the Amateur Monk's dressing-gown.
But genius must not be fettered.

_AEsop Redivivus_ is delightful, if only for the reappearance of the
quaint old woodcuts--some of which, however, the Baron is of opinion,
never belonged to the origina