d they all looked round.

It came from a tall, supercilious-looking Rocket, who was tied to the
end of a long stick. He always coughed before he made any observation,
so as to attract attention.

"Ahem! ahem!" he said, and everybody listened except the poor Catherine
Wheel, who was still shaking her head, and murmuring, "Romance is dead."

"Order! order!" cried out a Cracker. He was something of a politician,
and had always taken a prominent part in the local elections, so he knew
the proper Parliamentary expressions to use.

"Quite dead," whispered the Catherine Wheel, and she went off to sleep.

As soon as there was perfect silence, the Rocket coughed a third time
and began. He spoke with a very slow, distinct voice, as if he was
dictating his memoirs, and always looked over the shoulder of the person
to whom he was talking. In fact, he had a most distinguished manner.

"How fortunate it is for the King's son," he remarked, "that he is to be
married on the very day on which I am to be let off! Really, if it had
been arranged beforehand, it could not have turned out better for him;
but Princes are always lucky."

"Dear me!" said the little Squib, "I thought it was quite the other way,
and that we were to be let off in the Prince's honour."

"It may be so with you," he answered; "indeed, I have no doubt that it
is, but with me it is different. I am a very remarkable Rocket, and come
of remarkable parents. My mother was the most celebrated Catherine Wheel
of her day, and was renowned for her graceful dancing. When she made her
great public appearance she spun round nineteen times before she went
out, and each time that she did so she threw into the air seven pink
stars. She was three feet and a half in diameter, and made of the very
best gunpowder. My father was a Rocket like myself, and of French
extraction. He flew so high that the people were afraid that he would
never come down again. He did, though, for he was of a kindly
disposition, and he made a most brilliant descent in a shower of golden
rain. The newspapers wrote about his performance in very flattering
terms. Indeed, the Court Gazette called him a triumph of Pylotechnic
art."

"Pyrotechnic, Pyrotechnic, you mean," said a Bengal Light; "I know it is
Pyrotechnic, for I saw it written on my own canister."

"Well, I said Pylotechnic," answered the Rocket, in a severe tone of
voice, and the Bengal Light felt so crushed that he began at once to
bully the