at and eddying currents of air.

There was also an interesting account how a man in a boat was distinctly
heard by Mr. Green, jun., to exclaim, 'My eye!' which Mr. Green, jun.,
attributed to his voice rising to the balloon, and the sound being thrown
back from its surface into the car; and the whole concluded with a slight
allusion to another ascent next Wednesday, all of which was very
instructive and very amusing, as our readers will see if they look to the
papers. If we have forgotten to mention the date, they have only to wait
till next summer, and take the account of the first ascent, and it will
answer the purpose equally well.

CHAPTER XV--EARLY COACHES

We have often wondered how many months' incessant travelling in a
post-chaise it would take to kill a man; and wondering by analogy, we
should very much like to know how many months of constant travelling in a
succession of early coaches, an unfortunate mortal could endure.
Breaking a man alive upon the wheel, would be nothing to breaking his
rest, his peace, his heart--everything but his fast--upon four; and the
punishment of Ixion (the only practical person, by-the-bye, who has
discovered the secret of the perpetual motion) would sink into utter
insignificance before the one we have suggested. If we had been a
powerful churchman in those good times when blood was shed as freely as
water, and men were mowed down like grass, in the sacred cause of
religion, we would have lain by very quietly till we got hold of some
especially obstinate miscreant, who positively refused to be converted to
our faith, and then we would have booked him for an inside place in a
small coach, which travelled day and night: and securing the remainder of
the places for stout men with a slight tendency to coughing and spitting,
we would have started him forth on his last travels: leaving him
mercilessly to all the tortures which the waiters, landlords, coachmen,
guards, boots, chambermaids, and other familiars on his line of road,
might think proper to inflict.

Who has not experienced the miseries inevitably consequent upon a summons
to undertake a hasty journey? You receive an intimation from your place
of business--wherever that may be, or whatever you may be--that it will
be necessary to leave town without delay. You and your family are
forthwith thrown into a state of tremendous excitement; an express is
immediately dispatched to the washerwoman's; everybody is in a bust