Your lordship might give me a poem in exchange," concluded the _Moon_-man conceitedly. "An advance quote from your next volume, say." "Very well," and the peer good-naturedly began to recite the first fytte of an old English romance. Ye white moon sailed o'er ye dark-blue vault, And safely steered mid ye fleet of starres, And threw down smiles to ye antient salt, While Venus flyrtede with wynkynge Mars. Along ye sea-washed slipperie slabbes Ye whelkes were stretchynge their weary limbs, While prior to going to bedde ye crabbes Were softlie chaunting their evenynge hymnes." At this point a sudden shock threw both bards off their feet, inverting them in a manner most disagreeable to the _Moon_-man. While they were dropping into poetry, the balloon had been dropping into a wood, and the aeronaut had thrown his grapnel into the branches of a tree. "What's the matter?" they cried. "Change here for London!" said the Herr, phlegmatically, "unless you want to go mit me to Calais. In five more minutes I shall be crossing de Channel." "No, no, put us down," said the _Moon_-man. "I never _could_ cross the Channel. Oh, when are they going to make that tunnel?" Thereupon he lowered himself into the tree, and Lord Silverdale followed his example. [Illustration: _Coming Down from the Clouds._] "_Guten nacht!_" said the Herr. "Folkestone should be someveres about. Fordunately, de moon is out, and you may be able to find it!" "I say!" shrieked the _Moon_-man, as the balloon began to free itself on its upward flight, "How far off is it?" "I vill not be--_was heist es?_--interviewed. _Guten nacht._" Soon the great sphere was no bigger than a star in the heavens. "This is a nice go," said the _Moon_-man, when they had climbed down. "Oh, don't trouble. I know the Southeast coast well. There is sure to be a town within a four mile radius." "Then let us take a hansom," said the _Moon_-man. "Wilkins, are you--I mean you are--losing your head," said Lord Silverdale. And linking the interviewer's arm in his, he fared forth into the darkness. "Do you know what I thought," said Wilkins, as they undressed in the lonely roadside inn (for ballooning makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows), "when I was sliding down the trunk with you on the branches above?" "No--what did you--I mean you did think what?" "Well, I'm a bit superstitious, and I saw in the situation a forecast of my future. That tree typifies my genealogical tree, for when I have grown rich and prosperous by my trade, there will be a peer perched somewhere on the upper branches. Debrett will discover him." "Indeed I hope so," said the peer fervently, "for in the happy time when you shall have retired from business you will be able to make Diana happy." CHAPTER VII. THE IDYL OF TREPOLPEN.