them. What is your own candid opinion on
the subject?"

"Well, as you ask me, I should say--use pretty much the same soil as you
would for the other varieties. Er--ah--a suspicion of loam, not too dry,
and fairly well matured, sprinkled over the surface, is not
inadvisable."

"You don't say so? For my part, I stick to the old-established methods,
but no doubt modern enterprise has done something in the way of
development. Loam, you say, sprinkled over the surface? I must try it."

"But be careful that it just hits the happy mean in the matter of
moisture. If you keep it too dry, the plant runs to leaf instead of
flower; if too wet, the colour is apt to--to run a little."

The balloonist, having fairly spread the wings of his imagination, was
by this time quite prepared to fly into fresh difficulties. He was
enjoying himself tremendously, and had even forgotten that his
prospective rescuer was rather late in coming to his aid.

"But," objected the Colonel, omitting to notice a slight horticultural
mistake of the aeronaut's, "but how do you manage about the watering?
The loam must be wet at some times and comparatively dry at others."

"My dear sir, you mistake; the latest method is to carefully remove the
surface loam before watering, and then to replace it, moistened to the
proper degree."

"This is all very interesting," quoth the Colonel. "How it does one good
to talk with a genuine enthusiast on these delightful subjects! You are
trying for the blue dahlia, of course?"

"I've got it, sir," responded the balloonist, with triumphant emphasis.
He was now prepared to go any lengths, trusting that Fate would see the
thing through satisfactorily.

The Colonel skipped about in the wildest excitement.

"_Got the blue dahlia?_ Why, I have only got half way to it, and I
thought I was farther than most men. You know, of course, that there is
a prize of a thousand pounds offered for that unique production? Have
you claimed it?"

"I didn't care to," said Hampton, carelessly. "Frankly, there are so
many poor men trying for the prize--praiseworthy toilers who finish a
hard day's work by an evening's tending of some cottage garden--that I
could not bear to step in and take the prize. I have quite enough money,
too; I should scarcely know what to do with more."

The airy invisibility of the stranger, the unwontedness of the scene,
must have played havoc with the Colonel's credulity. He absorbed
everything, as a dry sp