After a while the man drew down the car low enough to get into it, and cried out: "Does anybody wish to accompany us in our grand aerial flight?" He said "us," as sounding fine; but he immediately explained that he would take a light gentleman only.
In a moment there shot from the crowd a long-legged, keen-eyed boy about fourteen years old, who nimbly stowed himself into the car, amid great laughter and shouts of "There goes Billy Knox!" "Good-night, Billy!" "Bring us down a star, Billy!" and like efforts at wit.
"Did you ever see a chap so ready and willing to risk his life for nothing?" asked somebody; and another man answered, coolly, "'Tain't no loss if he does break his neck; nobody owns him, and the world will be well rid of him."
Billy heard the heartless words, and turned to look at the speaker, while the owner of the machine arranged the ropes before getting into the car.
BILLY'S FIRST RISE IN THE WORLD.
Suddenly, like a bubble from a pipe bowl, up rose the balloon, Billy in and the man out! The crowd gave a gasp of surprise, the man stared stupidly, and then, just too late, leaped up like an acrobat, and clutched—only air. Billy, moving slowly up, sat like a statue; but loud and clear came down from the car a cry, not of terror, almost one of triumph.
"He'll be killed, sure," said the former speaker, emphatically, and his companion echoed, "Don't seem to care a bit about it either, just as you said."
Some of the people thought it a trick of the owner of the balloon, but his frantic denial and his evident distress at the loss of his property proved it to have been a mishap. Meanwhile the news flew like the wind over the field, and in a moment hundreds of faces were upturned toward the vanishing balloon. Everybody hoped the boy would not meet a dreadful death, though a goodly number said it might better be Billy than any one else; and all alike watched, not sorry, if such a thing must happen, that they were there to see it.
Up, up, went the car, and "nobody's boy" was rising far above the earth. The sunset light smote his red hair, and made it glitter like gold. But Billy was soon too far away for the crowd to jeer at him, even if the roughest could have done so while the boy was in such terrible peril.