He at length opened it, and drawing there from a huge letter
sealed with red sealing-wax and tied carefully with red tape, let it
fall precisely at the feet of the burgomaster, Superbus Von
Underduk. His Excellency stooped to take it up. But the aeronaut,
still greatly discomposed, and having apparently no farther business
to detain him in Rotterdam, began at this moment to make busy
preparations for departure; and it being necessary to discharge a
portion of ballast to enable him to reascend, the half dozen bags
which he threw out, one after another, without taking the trouble to
empty their contents, tumbled, every one of them, most unfortunately
upon the back of the burgomaster, and rolled him over and over no less
than one-and-twenty times, in the face of every man in Rotterdam. It
is not to be supposed, however, that the great Underduk suffered
this impertinence on the part of the little old man to pass off with
impunity. It is said, on the contrary, that during each and every
one of his one-and twenty circumvolutions he emitted no less than
one-and-twenty distinct and furious whiffs from his pipe, to which
he held fast the whole time with all his might, and to which he
intends holding fast until the day of his death.
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