We had agreed, my companion and I, that I should call for him at his house, after dinner, not later than eleven o’clock. This athletic young Frenchman belongs to a small set of Parisian sportsmen, who have taken up “ballooning” as a pastime. After having exhausted all the sensations that are to be found in ordinary sports, even those of “automobiling” at a breakneck speed, the members of the “Aéro Club” now seek in the air, where they indulge in all kinds of daring feats, the nerve-racking excitement that they have ceased to find on earth.