this staggered him, I added, mighty slyly, "I suppose it doesn't occur to you now that the whole affair was a game for a friendly wager?"
"No," he answered, brutally, "it doesn't. And what's more, it won't go down."
"In that respect," said I, with a sudden change of key, "it resembles your balloon. But I admire the obstinacy of your suspicions; since, as a matter of fact, I am Champdivers."
"The mur"
"Certainly not. I killed the man in fair duel."
"Ha!" He eyed me with sour distrust. "That is what you have to prove."
"Man alive, you don't expect me to demonstrate it up here, by the simple apparatus of ballooning!"
"There is no talk of 'up here,'" said he, and reached for the valve-string.
"Say 'down there' then. Down there it is no business of the accused to prove his innocence. By what I have heard of the law, English or Scotch, the boot is on the other leg. But I'll tell you what I can prove. I can prove, sir, that I have been a deal in your company of late; that I supped with you and Mr. Dalmahoy no longer ago than Wednesday. You may put it that we three are here together again by accident; that you never suspected me; that my invasion of your machine was a complete surprise to you, and, so far as you were concerned, wholly fortuitous. But ask yourself what any intelligent jury is likely to make of that cock-and-bull story." Mr. Byfield was visibly shaken. "Add to this," I proceeded, "that you have to explain Sheepshanks; to confess that you gulled the public by advertising a lonely ascension, and haranguing a befooled multitude to the same intent, when, all the time, you had a companion concealed in the
