“Yes, sir.”
Carpentaria examined the vast balloon, which was trembling and swaying and lugging with that aspiration towards heaven and the infinite so characteristic of well-filled balloons. He ignored the young man in spectacles.
“Where’s the parachutist?” Carpentaria demanded.
A parachutist was to give éclat to the first public ascent of the silken monster by dropping from it into the Thames or somewhere else. His apparatus hung beneath the great circular car.
“He’ll be here before three, sir,” said the head balloonist.
“He’s been here once, sir,” added the second balloonist, anxious to prove to himself that he also had the right to converse with the mighty Carpentaria.
A few seconds later the august President arrived. Mr. Josephus Ilam was tall, like his partner, but much stouter. He had, indeed, almost the inflated appearance which one observes constantly in the drivers of brewers’ drays; even his fingers bulged. His age was fifty, ten years more than that of Carpentaria, and it was probably ten years since he had seen his own feet. Finally, he was clean-shaven, with areas of blue on his chin and cheeks like the sea on a map, and his hair—what remained of it—seemed to be hesitating between black and grey.
“What’s the matter?” he asked of Carpentaria.
“Oh, I thought I would just like to make the first ascent with you alone,” Carpentaria answered, and added, smiling, “I have something to show you up there.”
His hand indicated the firmament, and his peculiar smile indicated that he took Ilam’s consent for granted.