Connecticut western news., 1896-12-17
ABOVE THE CLOUDS.

stand" said the judge as he looked uround at three or four guests after din- ner, is why everybody seems to expect a man when telling a story orally to confne himself strictly to the truth while no one ever demands anything of the sort from a writing story teller. It isn't fair. Besides it is based on wrong principles When man tells story, he ought to make it just as interesting as he can regardless of all considera- tions of truth. .'
 Dangerous doctrine Might be ex- tremely demoralizing, observed the dominic.
 1T can't think so,'' returned the judge. "Take the case of host, for in- stance. hold that it is not only his privilege but his duty to entertain his guests with the best stories he can tell and give no thought to truth. And I'll undertake to show you that it is not de- -horalizing in any way. You remember having heard me mention the tramp trip
  was a young man, presume.
 "I believe so, answered the major doubtfully.
 "I wasn't, of course, exactly what we picture when we think of tramp, but didn't have much money and natural ly fell in with all sorts and conditions of men. I reached my lowest ebb finan- cially in Sydney, Australia. At cheap boarding house I became acquainted with man who was by profession an aeronaut. His name was Mudgett, though on the bills he scintillated as Signor Campanella.
 ''He was an excellent story teller and good fellow, though, like myself, he was passing through a regular Oakhurst- ian streak of bad luck. He had lost his balloon. It seemed that the thing had blown away one particularly windy aft ernoon just before the ascent, and the poor fellow was waiting in hopes that it would be found out in the bush some where and brought in. It used to be quite pathetic to see him search through the want advertisements in the morning papers, looking for the heading of 'Found-Balloon, but he never came across it. He also advertised it himself, giving full description of the balloon and offering reward of e10 for its re- turn, but in this he was equally unsuc- cessfuL
 "At last he gave up all hope. Some woman found that balloon, he would say, and couldn't resist the temptation to cut it up for silk dresses. We'll, she's fixed for good while anyhow; that balloon ought to make an ordinary sized woman about 200 dresses, though I'll bet shilling she'll get tired of tho color along on the last half of the second 100. It was before the day of big sleeves, so dare say he was right about the number.
 But my friends fortunes changed finally, temporarily at least. He found man willing to furnish money for a new balloon, and after 1t was finished he made regular daily ascents for fort night. He asked me to accompany him, and I did SO several times However, ill luck still pursued Campanella, and two weeks after he got his new balloon he one day had a row with drunken sailor and went to the hospital with broken head.
 "The manager came to me in despair. Could not I make the ascent? I agreed and went over to the grounds. Here I put on the signor's gorgeous apparel and | climbed into the basket. There was a | trapeze below the basket on which the signor was wont to hang by his toes and otherwise to playfully disport himself while going up, but judiciously kept off and stuck to the basket.
 l ''The crowd made great uproar about this, feeling that they were not | getting their moneys worth unless they saw man endanger his life. could hear the manager explaining that l | would begin to perform as soon as was | up high enough to make it worth while, and later understood that after had passed out of sight above tho clouds he assured them that was then doing the most blood curdling feats on that tra- peze that any human being ever at- tempted.
 | "There was rather stiff breeze blowing and I sailed along at good rate. I had shot up 6,0o0 or 1000 feet, and far below was a mighty ocean of white cloud Where was the sun shone brightly, and it was cool and pleasant, but I could soon see the lightning thrash ing about below and hear the thunder growl I had no desire to go down into thunderstorm, so 1 sailed cn.
 "At the end of two hours was still driving along at the rate, 1 estimated, of 50 or 60 miles an hour. l had growr tired of watching the raging storm be low and looked off toward what l sup pose I may call the horizon. Far away against the sky l saw a speck. thought it was a bird at first but as we ap preached nearer what was my astonish ment to see that it was another balloon
 "We were being driven by current: blowing at right angles and were rapid ly coming closer together. Soon l coulc } make out another perscn ill the othel balloon. waved my hand at him, and as he was a hundred feet above me, threw out few handfuls of ballast. rose and instantly saw that we were going to meet. prepared a rope, and ss the sides of our great bags touched threw one end into the oncoming basket. As the other aeronaut strengthened uI from making the end fast l was further . astonished when my eyes met those o1 beautiful young woman.
 "The line was holding us only 10 ol 12 feet apart. took off my hat and, al total stranger, apologized for address L ...x1-