The process of inflation seemed to have but little effect on the balloon, and it was not until about five o'clock that the important discovery was made, that the gas introduced at the bottom had been escaping through a hole in the top, and that the Equitable Company was laying it on excessively thick through the windpipes of the assembled company. Six o'clock arrived, and, according to contract, the supply of gas was cut off, when the balloon, that had hitherto worn such an appearance as just to give a hope that it might in time be full, began to present an aspect which induced a general fear that it must very shortly be empty. The audience began to be impatient for the promised ascent, and while the aeronaut was running about in all directions looking for the hole, and wondering how he should stop it up, I was requested by the proprietor of the gardens to step into the car, just to check the growing impatience of the audience. I was received with that unanimous shout of cheering and laughter with which a British audience always welcomes any one who appears to have got into an awkward predicament, and I sat for a few minutes, quietly expecting to be buried in the silk of the balloon, which was beginning to collapse with the greatest rapidity. The spectators becoming impatient for the promised ascent, and seeing that it could not be achieved, determined, as enlightened British audiences invariably do, that if it was not to be done, it should at all events be attempted. In vain did Mr. Hampton come forward to apologise for the trifling accident; he was met by yells, hoots, hisses, and orange-peel, and the benches were just about to be torn up, when he declared, that under any circumstances, he was determined to go up--an arrangement in which I was refusing to coincide--when, just as he had got into the car, all means of getting out were withdrawn from under us--the ropes were cut, and the ascent commenced in earnest.