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Had it been my affair, I believe I should have obeyed a ridiculous impulse and begged them to keep it for their trouble; so weary was I of the machine. Byfield, however, directed them to slit a seam of the oiled silk and cut away the car, which was by this time wholly submerged and not to be lifted.
He rose on his knees, his finger-tips resting on the floor, and contemplated the aëronaut over his glasses with a world of reproach. "I tak' ye to witness, Mr. Byfield!" Byfield mopped a perspiring brow. "My dear sir," he stammered, "all a mistake no fault of mine explain presently"; then, as one catching at an inspiration, "Allow me to introduce you. Mr. Dalmahoy, Mr.
The University of Cramond delights to honour merit in the man, sir, rather than utility in the profession; and Byfield, though an ignorant dog, is a sound, reliable drinker, and really not amiss over his cups. Under the radiance of the kindly jar partiality might even credit him with wit." It will be seen afterwards that this was more my business than I thought it at the time.
And the stipulation was that I should be concealed in the car and make the ascension with him alone." "Are we then to take it, sir, that our company offends you?" I demanded. He made haste to disclaim. "Not at all: decidedly not in the least. But the chances were for less agreeable associates." I bowed. "And a bargain's a bargain," he wound up. "So it is," said I. "Byfield, hand Mr.
"Accept me, Captain Colenso, for your passenger: I will not say comrade-in-arms naval warfare being so far beyond my knowledge, which it would perhaps be more descriptive to call ignorance. But I can pay " I thrust a hand nervously into my breast-pocket, and blessed Flora for her waterproof bag. "Excuse me, Captain, if I speak with my friend here in private for a moment." I drew Byfield aside.
"Then in a minute or so I will do myself the pleasure of construing," said I, and turned to scan the earth we were leaving I had not guessed how rapidly. We contemplated it from the height of six hundred feet or so Byfield asserted after consulting his barometer.
It was Byfield's balloon the monster Lunardi in process of inflation. "Confound Byfield!" I ejaculated in my haste. "Who is Byfield?" "An aëronaut, my dear, of bilious humour; which no doubt accounts for his owning a balloon striped alternately with liver-colour and pale blue, and for his arranging it and a brass band in the very line of my escape. That man dogs me like fate." I broke off sharply.
He discussed science and religion with his pupils, and the result was a class of self-respecting, self-reliant, thinking women. Miss Lyon's friends discouraged her going to Byfield, because they thought she knew enough already. "Why," said they, "you will never be a minister, and what is the need of going to school?" She improved her time here.
We were made one with the clean silences receiving us; and speaking only for the Vicomte Anne de Saint-Yves, I dare assert that for five minutes a newly bathed infant had not been less conscious of original sin. "But look here, you know" it was Byfield at my elbow "I'm a public character, by George; and this puts me in a devilish awkward position." "So it does," I agreed.
There was a lurch and a heave in the crowd. "Pitch oot the drunken loon!" cried a voice. The next moment I heard my cousin bawling for a clear passage. With the tail of my eye I caught a glimpse of his plethoric perspiring face as he came charging past the barrels of the hydrogen-apparatus; and, with that, Byfield had shaken down a rope-ladder and fixed it, and I was scrambling up like a cat.
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