“The Guadalquiver or the Manzanares, perhaps,” murmured Patsy, “hardly the Amazon or the Mississippi. These pontoons are metal, the latest thing. Ours are of wood; we shall soon have them of metal like these Spanish ones.”
“Who told you so much?” I asked.
“I heard Lieutenant Grant say so,” said Patsy. “Didn’t you see him drive by with our Ambassador? I should like to ask him if this looks to him as it does to me, like a miniature Gettysburg.”
We were thankful when the review was safely over and everybody gone home safe and sound. It seemed to us the most dangerous of all the fêtes. The distance covered was so great that to protect all these royal people must have been well-nigh impossible.
“Lightning never strikes twice in the same place,” said Patsy. “The only thing to do is to assume that there is no danger.”
The most original of all the fêtes was the balloon race. Engracia sent us invitations to the Park of the Society of Aeronauts to see the start. We found all Madrid in the large enclosure; what was more important, we found Engracia in the midst of that crowd of smartly dressed people.
“The race,” Engracia told us, “has been arranged as a compliment to the Queen. She and the King will see it from their windows. All the balloons will pass over the palace.”
“Wind and weather permitting,” laughed Patsy. “Isn’t this the latest word in the way of Sport? I never heard of such a thing in New York or Paris.”
“Claro!” the Madrileña flashed out at him. “You think Spain is behind the rest of the world, yet you must come to Madrid to see a balloon race.”
The centres of attraction were the thirteen balloons entered for the race. Each monster air ball swaying in the stay ropes was surrounded by a group of people. Engracia led the way to one where the crowd was thickest.