and wrinkling up, in the unmistakable pangs of acute cramp colic.

She had a sickly, depleted aspect elsewhere, and altogether was most
flabby and unreliable looking; yet this, as I learned subsequently, was
her normal appearance. Being in the business of spying she practiced
deceit, with the deliberate intent of seeming to be what, emphatically,
she was not. She counterfeited chronic invalidism and she performed
competently.

She was an observation balloon of the pattern privily chosen by the
German General Staff, before the beginning of the war, for the use of
the German Signal Corps. On this particular date and occasion she
operated at a point of the highest strategic importance, that point
being the center of the German battle lines along the River Aisne.

She had been stationed here now for more than a week--that is to say,
ever since her predecessor was destroyed in a ball of flaming fumes as a
result of having a bomb flung through the flimsy cloth envelope by a
coursing and accurate aviator of the enemy. No doubt she would continue
to be stationed here until some such mischance befell her too.

On observation balloons, in time of war, no casualty insurance is
available at any rate of premium. I believe those who ride in them are
also regarded as unsuitable risks. This was highly interesting to hear
and, for our journalistic purposes, very valuable to know; but, speaking
personally, I may say that the thing which most nearly concerned me for
the moment was this: I had just been invited to take a trip aloft in
this wabbly great wienerwurst, with its painted silk cuticle and its
gaseous vitals--and had, on impulse, accepted.