Puck did not have many opportunities to distribute his cards, for the next day, while he was at dinner with his father and mother, they all heard a sound which went
“Boom-er-oom, a boom-er-oom!
A boom! boom! boom!”
It sounded as if some one was playing an immense bass-drum, a long way off, and playing very slowly.
“Listen!” Puck’s father explained. “It is time we were off; there are the cannon again, outside of the city.”
And so that very afternoon they left Paris. Can you guess how? Not by the railway, or by boat, or by omnibus, or by any ordinary means of travel. Guess again—something queer this time. Not perched on the back of a dromedary, or sent by express labeled “This side up with care, C. O. D.,” or telegraphed, or shot through the air in a bomb-shell, though the last is something like it. Yes, you are right now; they did go by balloon.
There were Puck and his father and his mamma, and an accomplished aëronaut to guide the balloon, which was one of the best kind, and, as the professor said, perfectly easy to manage. You know, perhaps, that during the siege of Paris it was almost impossible for any one to leave the city unless he went up in a balloon, and floated off above the besieging army. A great many persons escaped from Paris in this way.
Poor Augustine was very sorry to lose little Puck, who gave her one of his cards when he bade her good-bye; and Kiyi set up a doleful howl when they all left the court, as though he knew he should never see them again.
When everything was ready, the balloon rose into the air, and Puck nestled down in his mother’s arms and watched the ground and the roofs of the houses sink away beneath him. That is, he looked over the side of the car once, and saw them falling; but it made him dizzy, and he did not try it again. His mother saw the sick look about her little boy’s mouth, and said, pleasantly:
“Isn’t it nice? It’s better than having wings. And then you can make believe you are in a big ship; see all those ropes stretching away up there; they look just like rigging.”
Puck gave a quick, frightened glance up, then shuddered and said, faintly: