Perceiving, with half an eye, what kind of man we had to do with, I ran to the spot, stamped my foot firmly down, and cried out “here.”
“Sehr gut, now Herr Coxvel, (Mr. B—— translated) where will you place the balloon?”
The reply, sharp and emphatic on my part, was again “here,” but I had moved in the meantime a few yards farther on, and the smartness with which Küpper’s questions were answered, elicited his approval, as he raised his smoking cap, advanced towards me with a kindly greeting, and drew forth his cigar case.
“You have made a hit of it, if I have not,” cried B—— who was now regaining self-possession.
All the preparations having been made to the satisfaction of Küpper, who was a bit of a Tartar in his own domain, I was invited to accompany him down town at midday, Mr. S—— being left to the care of B—— who had begged a holiday from his pupils—they knowing, presumably, that he would scarcely be equal to his duties, until he had indulged in his first diversion of ballooning.
Abraham Küpper was great in riding, and he was also great in walking, he stood over six feet without his glazed boots, and when, after alighting from an open trap, he placed his arm in mine, and again withdrew it to stroke down his fine flowing beard, he attracted the attention of those who were passing by, and further rivetted it, by pronouncing my name in no undertone, so that I heard several persons observe, “Abraham und der Luftschiffer.”
He then led me with stately deportment into a confectioner’s, where in a private room we met several professors, doctors, and merchants, most of them I was relieved to find, speaking English; but Küpper on the way had been polite enough to drill into me a rapid instalment of his own language, although it was not high German, I was told—still to me it had a most imposing utterance, accompanied as it was, with considerable action.
One of the party to whom I was introduced, asked the pleasure of my company next day at their scientific institution, as there were papers to be read and discussion to follow on an interesting subject.
Küpper agreed that I was to be there without asking if I was that way disposed.
He next hurried me on, goodness knows to how many different places, and I could not but feel that his attentions were of a superior order to what I had met with in Brussels.