A few weeks ago a telegram was put into my hands containing two words only, "Come along."
The message was short, but eminently satisfactory, for it signified that the negotiations which had been in progress for a lofty balloon ascent from the Crystal Palace had been completed.
I scanned the weather with interest, for on this occasion I was to accompany my father skywards, and with him and the aeronaut to make an ascent which should not only be my first, but should be noteworthy from the height it was hoped to attain, we being a light party and the balloon a specially large one.
A talismanic card bearing Mr. Spencer's name, and the magic words "Private ascent," gained us free and instant admission to the Palace.
On our way to the balloon enclosure we fell in with our captain, Mr. Stanley Spencer, the youngest member of that firm of distinguished aeronauts who may be said to possess almost the monopoly of the upper regions, and the right of way in the skyey realms.
He was dressed in nautical fashion, as befits the man who sails his own craft through that vastest of all oceans—the ocean of the air—and with his gold-laced cap and blue jacket looked every inch the sailor that he is. He has steered his ship all over the world, being only just returned from India and China, while he wears on his coat the gold medal that the grateful people of Cuba presented him with in the days before the war.
Mr. Spencer's genial face was wreathed in smiles. He said the day was cut out for our ascent, that everything was in readiness, that the sky was clear, and that the wind would carry us directly over London, only he wished there was not quite so much of it.
"THE BALLOON WAS A FLAT, LIMP MASS OF RED AND YELLOW SILK AND CORD NETTING."
It was hard to believe that the flat, limp mass of red and yellow silk and cord netting that lay so inert and shapeless on the grass was shortly to bear us among the fleecy clouds that now flecked the heavens.