"Sure, I'm bewitched, entirely," he went on. "He laughs for all the world like Mister Ralph. Did ye iver see the like?
"What is it all, Mister Percy dear?"
Percy had by this time taken off his cap; and Tim, as he looked him fairly in the face, gave another start.
"By the mother of Moses!" he exclaimed, in terror, "we're all bewitched. Mister Ralph's turned into an ould man, with a furze bush of hair; and Mister Percy's beautiful hair has all turned black, and shriveled itself up. Am I turning, myself, I wonder?" and he looked into the glass, to see if any change had taken place in his own abundant crop of red hair.
The boys were laughing so that they could not speak for some time, and Tim sat gazing at them in speechless bewilderment. At last Percy, by a great effort, recovered himself; and explained to him the whole circumstances of the case. The Irishman's astonishment ceased now, but his dismay was as great as ever.
"Then is it alone you're going?" he said, at last. "Are you going into danger again, without taking me with you? You'd never do that, surely, Mister Ralph?"
"I am very sorry, Tim, to be separated from you," Ralph said; "but it is quite impossible for you to go with us. If you understood French and German as well as we do, the case would be different; but as it is, the thing is absolutely impossible. You know how great a trouble it was to disguise you, before; and it would treble our anxieties and difficulties. Not only that; but even if, in the face of every possible danger, we got you into Paris with us, there would be great difficulty in getting you out. Gambetta will give orders for us to be allowed to come out, in the first balloon; but it is by no means easy to get places in balloons, and it is unlikely in the extreme that we should be able to bring you out with us. So there you would be, shut up in Paris and separated from us, for months.
"No, no, Tim, the matter is altogether impossible. You stay quietly here and, in ten days or a fortnight--if all goes well--we shall be back again with you."
"And is it in a balloon you're thinking of coming out, Mister Ralph; flying like a bird through the air? Och, wirra, wirra! I'll never see yees again."
"Nonsense, Tim, there's no danger in a balloon. If getting in were no more dangerous than getting out, there would not be much peril in the matter."