ascent. We at once went to the hotel in the gardens, ordered our dinner, and whilst that was preparing proceeded to inspect our friend the balloon.
She (I suppose “she” is the right thing to call a balloon, “he” does not sound right) was half lying, half sitting on the ground, like a very fat and very drunken old lady with her hair in a Brobdingnagian net, lolling her head about, and making ineffectual efforts to get up. She was undergoing the process of stuffing with gas from a six-inch pipe, and was swelling very visibly. We had a short conversation with the intrepid aëronaut, who was a lithe, intelligent little man of about thirty-five years of age. He told us that he had already made forty-one ascents, and had never been in the smallest difficulty. I cannot say that this re-assured me much, as my feeling was that, as he had made forty-one successful ascents already, and that all aëronauts were killed sooner or later, it must be getting near his time to have his little misfortune.
The remarks of my friends, however kindly they may have been meant, did not tend to raise my spirits, as they principally consisted of offers of service in case anything very tragical should occur.
I was becoming somewhat re-assured by the manner and conversation of the aëronaut as he bustled round his balloon—he seemed so thoroughly to know what he was about—when my cogitations were agreeably disturbed by the announcement of dinner.
To dinner we went, and a very merry little dinner we had, considering. Our window looked out upon the dancing platform, and in the orchestra a capital band was playing; the dinner and wine were good, the sun shone brightly, the green fresh branches of a tree partially shaded our window; the comic Irishman pattered from the orchestra his two comic costume songs, the tenor requested some young lady to “come into the garden” (Cremorne, I presume), and the soprano and contralto, of whom I will say no more than that their talents equalled their personal appearance, did their best to please us.
Whose spirits would not rise under such circumstances? Had I been a malefactor awaiting execution, I am convinced I should have made several cheery and facetious observations.
I had just lit my cigar, and was beginning to be as jolly under difficulties as Mark Tapley himself could have been, when bang went several small cannon, announcing the immediate departure of the balloon.
“Look sharp, old boy, you’ll be late!” cry my friends.
“There’s no fun till I come, as the man said, &c., &c.,” answer I gloomily; and having with a great command of my feelings ordered supper for three at eleven that evening, and told the waiter that “I would pay the bill when I returned,” got into my great coat, and with a gay and cheerful air sallied out into the garden.
There she was, but what a change! No longer the drunken old woman, but an upright, graceful, intelligent-looking creature, straining at her bands and longing to be off.
A considerable crowd was collected without the ropes, through whom I pushed, not without some feeling of dignity, as the man who was going up in the balloon.
I shook hands with my friends (who somewhat disturbed my nerve by most feelingly and unnecessarily taking an affectionate last farewell of me), and walked in as unconcerned a manner as I could command to the car. Car! Call this thing a car? why it’s a clothes’ basket! was my mental observation; but as the eyes of the Cremorne world were upon me I stepped in. My dignity was somewhat impaired by my hat being knocked off by the hoop above the car, upon which my friend the intrepid one was seated, separating the gas-pipe from the bottom of the balloon, and tying up the opening with his pocket-handkerchief.
I have a confused idea of several hurried preparations being made, shifting of ballast, &c. I remember wagging my hand in a general way towards the crowd, by way of taking leave of my friends, whom I need not say I was utterly unable to distinguish. The words “let go” were given: I clung to the sides of the clothes’ basket, and off we went.
I could detect no movement on the part of the balloon; the earth appeared to sink away rapidly from under our feet whilst we remained stationary. In a moment the gardens appeared but a small patch beneath and behind us, and by the time I had recovered my nerve sufficiently to look about me, we were some thousand feet above the world.
The scene was so glorious and so striking that involuntarily I jumped up in my basket, quite forgetting my nerves and my previous hatred of altitudes. My companion appeared to prefer his precarious position on the hoop, for there he remained till we prepared to descend.
I cannot pretend to describe the scene that was shortly laid out before us. London, the mighty London, lay stretched out at my feet like the contents of a child’s box of toy-houses. Right and left of us for miles and miles, or rather inches and inches, wound a streamlet called by pigmy mortals the Thames; nearly under our feet was the Crystal Palace; distances indeed seemed annihilated. King’s Cross and Euston Square stations appeared to be but a stone’s throw from Belgrave Square. I was roused from my contemplation of this magnificent scene by my friend above, who requested me to “throw out some of those bills.” I accordingly disseminated a vast amount of useful and entertaining knowledge in the shape of bundles of programmes of the amusements at Cremorne. “Rather heavy reading,” I said to myself as I threw them out, for they seemed to sink beneath us like sheets of lead. I found out later, however, that this was caused by the rapidity of our ascent. This was hard to realise, as it was impossible to detect the slightest movement. There was not a breath of air, though the wind was blowing freely; we moved so exactly with the current, that a lighted taper would have burnt as steadily as in the most carefully closed room.
Our course now lay over the Serpentine and Hyde Park towards the Marble Arch. As we reached the middle of the park the hum which rose from