ngst
his friends that casual references to his great work on "Underground
England" were not displeasing to him. But, as he was wont to say, "The
surest way of finding either mental or bodily recreation is to seek it
in fresh fields of labour."

Thus it came to pass one evening in the spring of this year that Josiah,
having shut himself in all day with the determination to make up for
lost time, found he had, with the aid of cold tea and wet bandages,
added as much as half a page to his great work. Feeling the need of a
little change of thought and association, he had availed himself of an
invitation kindly sent to him to join the meeting of an aeronautic
society. Josiah had listened with profound attention to the various
speeches made, and had thought, really, when he had a little more time
he would devote it to the fascinating science of aeronautics.

Amongst the guests of the society, and indeed the hero of the evening,
was Captain Mulberry, the famous guardsman who devoted much natural
talent and a considerable portion of his life to the endeavour either to
kill or hopelessly maim himself. Evil fortune had kept his sword
stainless, as far as regular warfare went, but there was generally a
little fighting going on somewhere, and, the captain's leave of absence
coinciding, he from time to time managed to sniff the exhilarating smell
of powder, and knew the music of bullet and shell. These things were
surrounded with difficulties. It obviously would not do for a man
bearing Her Majesty's commission to lend his sword to one or other
belligerents in a conflict between nations at peace with England. In a
country like Spain, for example, things naturally run a little
irregularly and the captain being on the spot may have occasionally
lapsed into battle.

But these were mere episodes. Having tried most things, he had taken to
ballooning, as offering the largest amount of risk in the least possible
space of time. He had been up in all kinds of balloons in all possible
circumstances, and had come down in various ways. He had just now
achieved a great feat, making a voyage from the Grampian Hills to the
Orkney Islands. The society desiring to do him honour had invited him to
this meeting, and Josiah had heard him describe his perilous voyage.

"A mere nothing," he said; "perhaps a little difficult going, but
nothing at all coming back. The difficulty in going out was to drop on
the Orkneys. The place is so small that when y