But to return.
The balloon (for such no doubt it was) had now descended to within a
hundred feet of the earth, allowing the crowd below a sufficiently
distinct view of the person of its occupant. This was in truth a
very droll little somebody. He could not have been more than two
feet in height; but this altitude, little as it was, would have been
sufficient to destroy his equilibrium, and tilt him over the edge of
his tiny car, but for the intervention of a circular rim reaching as
high as the breast, and rigged on to the cords of the balloon. The
body of the little man was more than proportionately broad, giving
to his entire figure a rotundity highly absurd. His feet, of course,
could not be seen at all, although a horny substance of suspicious
nature was occasionally protruded through a rent in the bottom of
the car, or to speak more properly, in the top of the hat. His hands
were enormously large. His hair was extremely gray, and collected in a
cue behind. His nose was prodigiously long, crooked, and inflammatory;
his eyes full, brilliant, and acute; his chin and cheeks, although
wrinkled with age, were broad, puffy, and double; but of ears of any
kind or character there was not a semblance to be discovered upon
any portion of his head.
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