Balloons, indeed, were seen very often, and a great deal of time was devoted to the study of their movements.  In the silence of the night a practical joker would rush out with a field-glass in his hand and shout “balloon!” at the top of his voice.  The desired effect—­of bringing the whole street out of bed to see the balloon—­was easily produced.  The star-gazers would thus spend an hour or so minutely examining all the stars in the firmament in their endeavours to select the one that most resembled a balloon.  This was not easily done—­the stars being much alike to the stupid naked eye—­but they would near the point of agreement on the question; and then the confounded night-patrol would come along with his gun, and the observers would have to rush for the cover of their blankets.  When it was thought that the patrol had passed two thousand yards there would be a general sneak back to begin over again the search for the needle in the great haggard of the heavens.  Everybody had his or her own particular planet to minimise.  The brightest planets were naturally the more general choice, albeit distance might in the circumstances be expected to lend a dimness to the view. Venus was essentially a very nice balloon; numbers swore by Jupiter; Mercury had a heavy following. Taurus was indeed a “Bull”; and Mars! talk of Mars being inhabited; we identified its inhabitants as being necessarily British.  There were thirteen signs in the Zodiac.  Anybody who called a star a star was called an ass. “That’s no star,” your exasperated kinsman would retort, “do you take me for a blind fool.”  And it only required a fixed, steady gaze of ten minutes, without winking, to convince the most sceptical that it was indeed “no star”; that it did “move”; that it was “too large” for a star; that it was absurd to consider it not a balloon.  The Milky Way (as per diverse opinions) was one vast creamery of balloons, undiluted by the “poetry of heaven!” In fine, among all the things that twinkled there were only some half dozen that hushed the voice of controversy.  It was certain there remained at least five luminaries, five unmistakable stars, to wit, the Southern Cross.  Paul Kruger once expressed astonishment that the British had not annexed the moon, if it were inhabited.  Well, the moon, though there is a man in it, was, shall I say, too large, too obviously itself, to deceive the Imperial eye.  We left the recluse in the moon alone, to smile in dreary solitude; interference with him would spoil the moonshine.

CHAPTER XIII

Week ending 13th January, 1900