"Well, at last we have made a landing," said one of the men.

"Yes," said the other. "And we shall have to throw out some bags of sand
to go up again."

Squinty did not know what this meant. But I'll explain to you that a
"landing" is when a balloon comes down to the ground. And when the men
in it want to go up again, they have to toss out some of the bags of
sand, or ballast, they carry to make the balloon so light that the gas
in it will take it up again.

The men began tossing out the bags of sand. Squinty saw them, but he was
not afraid. Why should he be? for no men or boys had ever been cruel to
him.

"Uff! Uff!" grunted Squinty, getting up and going over to one of the
bags of sand. "Maybe that is good to eat!" he thought. "If it is I will
take a bite. I am hungry."

"Oh, look at that pig!" suddenly called one of the men in the balloon
basket.

"Sure enough, it is a pig!" exclaimed the other. "And what a comical
little chap he is!" he went on. "See the funny way he looks at you."

At that moment Squinty looked up, as he often did, with one eye partly
closed, the other open, and with one ear cocked frontwards, and the
other backwards.