welve balloons, whose force of
ascension had been carefully calculated. First it was directed, by
ropes, exactly over the top of the tart; then at the word of command
it gently descended upon the right spot. It was not a quarter of an
inch out of place. This was a great triumph for Mother Mitchel and her
able assistant.

But all was not over. How should this colossal tart be cooked? That
was the question that agitated all the people of the Greedy country,
who came in crowds--lords and commons--to gaze at the wonderful
spectacle.

Some of the envious or ill-tempered declared it would be impossible to
cook the edifice which Mother Mitchel had built; and the doctors were,
no one knows why, the saddest of all. Mother Mitchel, smiling at the
general bewilderment, mounted the summit of the tart; she waved her
crutch in the air, and while her cat miaowed in his sweetest voice,
suddenly there issued from the woods a vast number of masons, drawing
wagons of well-baked bricks, which they had prepared in secret. This
sight silenced the ill-wishers and filled the hearts of the Greedy
with hope.

In two days an enormous furnace was built around and above the
colossal tart, which found itself shut up in an immense earthen pot.
Thirty huge mouths, which were connected with thousands of winding
pipes for conducting heat all over the building, were soon choked with
fuel, by the help of two hundred charcoal burners, who, obeying a
private signal, came forth in long array from the forest, each
carrying his sack of coal. Behind them stood Mother Mitchel with a box
of matches, ready to fire each oven as it was filled. Of course the
kindlings had not been forgotten, and was all soon in a blaze.

When the fire was lighted in the thirty ovens, when they saw the
clouds of smoke rolling above the dome, that announced that the
cooking had begun, the joy of the people was boundless. Poets
improvised odes, and musicians sung verses without end, in honour of
the superb prince who had been inspired to feed his people in so
dainty a manner, when other rulers could not give them enough even of
dry bread. The names of Mother Mitchel and of the illustrious engineer
were not forgotten in this great glorification. Next to His Majesty,
they were certainly the first of mankind, and their names were worthy
of going down with his to the remotest posterity.

All the envious ones were thunderstruck. They tried to console
themselves by saying that the work