ladder! Oh, those she devils!--what could make me such a fool!"

Whilst Monsieur Margot was venting his spleen in a scarcely articulate
mutter, we repaired to the lodge, knocked up the porter, communicated the
accident, and procured the ladder. However, an observant eye had been
kept upon our proceedings, and the window above was re-opened, though so
silently that I only perceived the action. The porter, a jolly, bluff,
hearty-looking fellow, stood grinning below with a lantern, while we set
the ladder (which only just reached the basket) against the wall.

The chevalier looked wistfully forth, and then, by the light of the
lantern, we had a fair view of his ridiculous figure--his teeth chattered
woefully, and the united cold without and anxiety within, threw a double
sadness and solemnity upon his withered countenance; the night was very
windy, and every instant a rapid current seized the unhappy sea-green
vesture, whirled it in the air, and threw it, as if in scorn, over the
very face of the miserable professor. The constant recurrence of this
sportive irreverence of the gales--the high sides of the basket, and the
trembling agitation of the inmate, never too agile, rendered it a work of
some time for Monsieur Margot to transfer himself from the basket to the
ladder; at length, he had fairly got out one thin, shivering leg.

"Thank God!" said the pious professor--when at that instant the
thanksgiving was checked, and, to Monsieur Margot's inexpressible
astonishment and dismay, the basket rose five feet from the ladder,
leaving its tenant with one leg dangling out, like a flag from a balloon.

The ascent was too rapid to allow Monsieur Margot even time for an
exclamation, and it was not till he had had sufficient leisure in his
present elevation to perceive all its consequences, that he found words