‘You kin smile,’ returned Ephraim. ‘You’ve looked yer last on the old world fer a bit. Why, that echo might hev told me, fer I read about jest such a thing in my book; but I war that flabbergasted et what ye said about the torches that I clean forgot it.’ ‘Was the echo in the air then?’ asked Lucius. ‘It p’intedly war. Thar and nowhar else. Then we got out er that belt and whoosh! through thet cloud and rain-storm, and hyar we air bright and early, all ready to give howdy to the little twinklin’ stars. Hurroo!’ ‘But are you sure?’ persisted Lucius. ‘I can’t believe it.’ ‘Waal, it’s so, sonny. Ye kin see fer yerself.’ Ephraim tore up some paper and flung the pieces over the side of the car, and as he flashed the light upon them, Lucius observed that they appeared to be fluttering down. ‘Thet shows we’re goin’ up, ye onderstand,’ said Grizzly. ‘No, I do not understand,’ answered Lucius; ‘and since you know so much about it, you’d better explain.’ Ephraim needed no second bidding, but at once began a learned discourse on ballast, valves, and everything pertaining to the manufacture and management of balloons, when Lucius suddenly shrieked out: ‘My ears are beating like drums, and I think my head is going to burst.’ ‘Ye don’t say so!’ responded Ephraim in unaffected alarm. ‘Hello! so’s mine. We must be goin’ up too high. Hold on! I’ll fetch her down.’ He pulled the cord which opened the valve as he spoke, and presently they were conscious of pleasanter surroundings. ‘That’s better,’ said Lucius. ‘Do you know, I think it was rather rash to come up in the dark.’ ‘Maybe it war,’ admitted Ephraim; ‘but ef we’d tried ter start in the daytime, we’d never hev come up at all.’ ‘We should have been stopped, sure enough,’ assented Lucius, who with the absence of motion on the part of the balloon had lost most of the fear which had possessed him at the start. ‘All the same, I think we might as well have waited for the dawn.’ ‘I don’t suppose thar’s much risk er a collision up hyar,’ said Ephraim quaintly. ‘I ’magine we’ve got the sky pretty much ter ourselves. But ye won’t hev long ter wait fer dawn on a June night; and meantime, ef we watch the valve we’ll hev no trouble.’ ‘That brings us down?’ said Lucius. ‘Ezacly. It’s all jest ez easy ez fallin’ off’n a log, this yer balloonin’. When we want ter git up, ye chuck out a bag of ballast, and when ye want ter come down, ye pull the valve cord and let out a smart lump of gas. That’s about the lot of it.’ ‘When we get back to Staunton,’ advised Lucius, ‘you ought to turn professional.’ ‘Professional what?’ inquired Ephraim, who was busy setting things to rights in the car by the light of the lantern. ‘Why, professional—what d’ye call him? The man who goes up in balloons.’