"'Officer! officer!' I shouted, 'have you seen it?'

"'Seen what?' asked the blue-coat, twirling his club.

"'The car--the balloon,' I stammered.

"'Balloon in your head! You're drunk. Get long out o' here!'

"I realized the impossibility of explaining the matter to him, and
running back to the place where I had got over the fence I climbed into
the yard and entered the shed. Fortunately the policeman paid no further
attention to my movements after I left him. I sat down on the empty
cradle and stared up through the opening in the roof, hoping against hope
to see them coming back. It must have been midnight before I gave up my
vigil in despair, and went home, sorely puzzled, and blaming myself for
having kept my suspicions unuttered. I finally got to sleep, but I had
horrible dreams.

"The next day I was up early looking through all the papers in the hope
of finding something about the car. But there was not a word. I watched
the news columns for several days without result. Whenever the coast was
clear I haunted Stonewall's yard, but the fatal shed yawned empty, and
there was not a soul about the house. I cannot describe my feelings. My
friends seemed to have been snatched away by some mysterious agency, and
the horror of the thing almost drove me crazy. I felt that I was, in a
manner, responsible for their disappearance.

"One day my heart sank at the sight of a cousin of Jack Ashton's
motioning to me in the street. He approached, with a troubled look. 'Mr.
Church,' he said, 'I think you know me; can you tell me what has become