22 minutes past 8.—­The square-keeper has resigned.

25 minutes past 8.—­The boys have gone home.

1/2 past 8.—­The square-keeper has been restored, and is showing great courage and activity.  It is not thought necessary to place him under arms; but he is under the engine, which can he brought into play at a moment’s notice.  His activity is surprising, and his resolution quite undaunted.

9 o’clock.—­All is perfectly quiet, and the letters are being delivered by the general post-man as usual.  The inhabitants appear to be going to their business, as if nothing had happened.  The square-keeper, with the whole of his staff (a constable’s staff), may be seen walking quietly up and down.  The revolution is at an end; and, thanks to the fire-engine, our old constitution is still preserved to us.

* * * * *

RECOLLECTIONS OF A TRIP IN MR HAMPTON’S BALLOON.

IN A LETTER FROM A WOULD-BE PASSENGER.

My dear Friend.—­You are aware how long I have been longing to go up in a balloon, and that I should certainly have some time ago ascended with Mr. Green, had not his terms been not simply a cut above me, but several gashes beyond my power to comply with them.  In a word, I did not go up with the Nassau, because I could not come down with the dust, and though I always had “Green in my eye,” I was not quite so soft as to pay twenty pounds in hard cash for the fun of going, on

[Illustration:  A DARK (K)NIGHT,]

nobody knows where, and coming down Heaven knows how, in a field belonging to the Lord knows who, and being detained for goodness knows what, for damage.

Not being inclined, therefore, for a nice and expensive voyage with Mr. Green, I made a cheap and nasty arrangement with Mr. Hampton, the gentleman who courageously offers to descend in a parachute—­a thing very like a parasol—­and who, as he never mounts much above the height of ordinary palings, might keep his word without the smallest risk of any personal inconvenience.

It was arranged and publicly announced that the balloon, carrying its owner and myself, should start from the Tea-gardens of the Mitre and Mustard Pot, at six o’clock in the evening; and the public were to be admitted at one, to see the process of inflation, it being shrewdly calculated by the proprietor, that, as the balloon got full, the stomachs of the lookers on would be getting empty, and that the refreshments would go off while the tedious work of filling a silken bag with gas was going on, so that the appetites and the curiosity of the public would be at the same time satisfied.

The process of inflation seemed to have but little effect on the balloon, and it was not until about five o’clock that the important discovery was made, that the gas introduced at the bottom had been escaping through a hole in the top, and that the Equitable Company was laying it on excessively thick through the windpipes of the assembled company.