"Your Royal Highness cannot blame us if we sometimes go out of our way to get into danger," said the captain, saluting. "Your Royal Highness has much to answer for by inflaming us with the memory of Inkermann. How can we sit still or lounge about in our peaceful homes, when we think of you on that day?"
"Tut, tut!" said the Illustrious Personage, spluttering down like a fire on which a bucket of water had been flung, "that was a different thing. But come and dine with me to-night: only, drive up in a hansom, don't arrive in a balloon."
And the Illustrious Personage, what with enjoyment of the joke, and what with muscular effort to suppress his laughter, nearly brought about a vacancy in the highest rank of the army.
All this was doubtless as true as the story about the exit from the Spanish farmhouse. But it pleased the company, and was only one of a dozen stories they told about the captain, who was chiefly longing to be out where he could smoke a cigar.
When the meeting came to an end, Josiah walked along Pall Mall meditating on things, and on the comparative obscurity of the work he had assigned to himself. Whilst others were soaring in high places, he was burrowing underground. Both were in search of knowledge. Both desired to benefit their fellow-men. But of the two Josiah felt that the aëronauts had the advantage of the undergrounders. It was too late for him to think of striking out a new path; but he thought that if he had to begin life again he would soar.
Whilst pondering on these matters, he was startled by a heavy hand laid upon his shoulder, and heard a cheery voice exclaim:
"Got a match in your pocket, old man?"
He looked up, and there, somewhere on a level with the lantern in the neighbouring lamp-post, was the genial face of Captain Mulberry.
"No," said Josiah, "I'm sorry I have not."
"Don't smoke, eh? You don't look the kind of old boy to have any pleasant vices. I saw you in the Balloon Society's rooms just now, and rather took a fancy to you."