"Here we are at 800 metres! Men resemble insects! See, I think it is
from this height that we should always look at them, to judge correctly
of their moral proportions! The Place de la Comédie is transformed to an
immense ant-hill. Look at the crowd piled up on the quays. The Zeil
diminishes. We are above the church of Dom. The Mein is now only a white
line dividing the city, and this bridge, the Mein-Brucke, looks like a
white thread thrown between the two banks of the river."

The atmosphere grew cooler.

"There is nothing I will not do for you, my host," said my companion.
"If you are cold, I will take off my clothes and lend them to you."

"Thanks!"

"Necessity makes laws. Give me your hand, I am your countryman. You
shall be instructed by my company, and my conversation shall compensate
you for the annoyance I have caused you."

I seated myself, without replying, at the opposite extremity of the car.
The young man had drawn from his great coat a voluminous portfolio; it
was a work on aerostation.

"I possess," said he, "a most curious collection of engraving, and
caricatures appertaining to our aerial mania. This precious discovery
has been at once admired and ridiculed. Fortunately we have passed the
period when the Mongolfiers sought to make factitious clouds with the
vapour of water; and of the gas affecting electric properties, which
they produced by the combustion of clamp straw with chopped wool."