THE HIPPODROME.
The other performance was in some respects more extraordinary still. There was a mast set up in the ground, thirty or forty feet high. At the ground, ten feet from the foot of the mast, there commenced an inclined plane, formed of a plank about a foot or eighteen inches wide, which ascended in a spiral direction round and round the mast till it reached the top. A man ascended this plane by means of a large ball, about two feet in diameter, which he rolled up standing upon it, and rolling it by stepping continually on the ascending side. There was no ledge or guard whatever to keep the ball from rolling off the plane—nothing but a narrow plank ascending continually, and winding in a spiral manner around the mast. This experiment it was quite frightful to see. Several of the children who were sitting near Mr. George's party began to cry, saying, "O, he will fall—he will fall!" In fact, Jennie could not bear to look at him, and so she shut her eyes; and even Mrs. Holiday looked another way. But Rollo watched it through, and saw the man go on up to the very top of the mast, and stand there on his ball on the top, forty feet above the ground, with his hands extended in triumph. After remaining there a short time, he came down as he had gone up; and when he reached the ground, he rolled his ball along, keeping on it all the time, till he came to a chariot which was waiting to receive him. He stepped from the ball off to the chariot, and was then driven all around the ring, being received every where, as he passed, with the acclamations of the spectators.
Chapter VII.
Carlos.
One morning, just after breakfast, when Rollo and Jennie were sitting at the window of their hotel, looking at a band of about forty drummers that were arranging themselves on the Asphaltum, in the Place Vendome, in front of the column, preparatory to an exercise of practice on their instrument, Mr. George came into the room. Mr. George took up a newspaper which was lying upon the table, and, seating himself in a large arm chair which was near, he read from it for a few minutes, and then, laying down the paper, said,—
"Rollo, how do you pronounce L-o-u-v-o-i-s?"
Mr. George did not speak the word, but spelled it letter by letter.
"I don't know," said Rollo.
"Because," said Mr. George, "that is the name of the hotel where I have gone."