Twenty-One Balloons (Puffin Modern Classics)

dish washing and drying machines—the whole house has every imaginable convenience, we believe. I have shown you all of its most spectacular aspects.”

There,” said Mr. F., climbing back through the window out of breath and with a most distressed look on his face. “You can see that this is hardly what one might call an improvement in livingrooms.”

“Why don’t they slow them down a bit?” I asked.

“The scientists who designed these infernal machines insist that they could slow them down. But Mr. and Mrs. M. have had so many sad experiences, such as shocks and bumps, in the room that they refuse to have electric chairs of any sort. M-1 and M-2 are crazy about them, however. The room has been turned over to them and their play-room has been made into a livingroom for Mr. and Mrs.

M. All of the children on the Island spend many hours a day driving the easy chairs around the room, yelling and screaming and bumping into each other. The couch holds about four children and is the fastest in the room. I would hate to predict what will become of this younger, mechanically minded generation.”

I agreed that the electrical age we were entering was indeed frightening.

can see now why Krakatoa was always considered unfit to live on,” said Mr. F.

“I couldn’t be more completely convinced,” I groaned.

“That’s the peculiar thing about nature,” explained Mr. F., “it guards its rarest treasures with greatest care. Every year on other Pacific islands hundreds of natives lose their lives trying to bring up pearls from the floor of the sea. Man pays nature dearly for pearls. This noisy volcano on Krakatoa has frightened men away from the island for centuries. This fickle, dangerous, an

The Globe instantly bounded up through the rain clouds, into the sun again, and I continued on in fresh air and sunshine.

The wind, of course, is always behind you when you fly a balloon; and since the wind travels faster than the balloon, due to the friction present when such a massive body moves through the atmosphere, it carries all odors forward. However, the odors from my garbage had become so persistent by the fourth day, that I was finding myself to be constantly flying through my own smells, as it were—a most disagreeable state of affairs.

balloon house was nice to travel in, for except at noontime, when the sun was directly overhead, there was always one side of the porch where I could sit in the warm sun. I did a great deal of reading. Seated in a comfortable chair, my feet propped up on the balustrade—this was a truly enjoyable mode of life.

years I had cherished the idea of this trip. As you know, I was a teacher of arithmetic for forty years. Forty years of being surrounded by a classroom of healthy prankish students. Forty years of spitballs. Forty years of glue on my seat, Sal Hepatica in my inkwell, and other devilish tricks. Long about the thirty-sixth year, I started yearning to be alone. I amused myself with thinking of many ways of doing this, trips in small boats, Polar expeditions; I joined this Explorers’ Club, for after all it seemed to me that the ambition of explorers was to go where no one had gone before. One day I started thinking of a balloon in which I could float around out of everybody’s reach. This was the main idea behind my trip: to be where no one would bother me for perhaps one full year; away from all such boring things in the lives of teachers as daily schedules, having to be in different classrooms at exact times week after week.

These three songs, selected by the Mayor himself, were, Oh When I Walk, I Always Walk with Billy; Billy Boy; and Marching Through Georgia. It was thought afterwards by many that the slim connection between that last song and Professor William Sherman was a bit far-fetched.

ground and surrounded by smaller planets.

Now what do you suppose the Indians did?

Did they back away trembling with fear?

No.

Did they shriek with fright?

No.

Did they beat up the Medicine Man?

No. They gave the cupola an appraising look, then one of them said, “Huh! Dumb white man decorate Explorers’ Club of San Francisco with too many balloons. Get hatchet. Cut door in United States between New York and San Francisco. This make good new house for Chief.”

San Francisco’s reaction to this was to prepare for Professor Sherman the most fabulous celebration imaginable. Professor Sherman was a balloonist. San Francisco went balloon crazy. The railroad station was swathed in bunting, flags, and miniature balloons. The avenue from the railroad station to the Western American Explorers’ Club was lined with triumphant Corinthian columns, each surmounted by a brace of bright-colored miniature balloons. Ladies revived the balloon fashions in dresses which had been popular in France a hundred years before. Fat ladies gave up their diets. Everybody talked about “that round look.”