"And so he soared up above my glass roof and looked down, I
suppose?"

"That's what he did," said Samuel; "but he had a good deal of
trouble doin' it. It was moonlight, and I watched him."

"Why didn't you fire at him?" asked Clewe. "Or at least let fly
one of the ammonia squirts and bring him down?"

"I wanted to see what he would do," said the old man. "The
machine he had couldn't be steered, of course. He could go up
well enough, but the wind took him where it wanted to. But I
must give this feller the credit of sayin' that he managed his
basket pretty well. He carried it a good way to the windward of
the lens-house, and then sent it up, expectin' the wind to take
it directly over the glass roof, but it shifted a little, and so
he missed the roof and had to try it again. He made two or three
bad jobs of it, but finally managed it by hitchin' a long cord to
a tree, and then the wind held him there steady enough to let him
look down for a good while."

"You don't tell me that!" cried Clewe. "Did you stay there and
let him look down into my lens-house?"

The old man laughed. "I let him look down," said he, "but he
didn't see nothin'. I was laughin' at him all the time he was at
work. He had his instruments with him, and he was turnin' down
his different kinds of lights, thinkin', of course, that he could
see through any kind of coverin' that we put over our machines;