The works of Edgar Allan Poe; newly collected and edited, with a memoir, critical introductions, and notes, by Edmund Clarence Stedman and George Edward Woodberry; the illustrations by Albert Edward Sterner.

ADVENTURE OF ONE HANS PFAALL

few minutes it arrived near enough to be accurately
discerned. It appeared to be -yes! it was undoubtedly a species of balloon; but surely no such
balloon had ever been seen in Rotterdam before.
For who, let me ask, ever heard of a balloon manufactured entirely of dirty newspapers? No man in
Holland certainly; yet here, under the very noses of
the people, or rather at some distance above their
noses, was the identical thing in question, and composed, I have it on the best authority, of the precise
material which no one had ever before known to be
used for a similar purpose. It was an egregious
insult to the good sense of the burghers of Rotterdam.
As to the shape of the phenomenon, it was even still
more reprehensible, being little or nothing better than
a huge fool's-cap turned upside down. And this
similitude was regarded as by no means lessened
when, upon nearer inspection, the crowd saw a large
tassel depending from its apex, and, around the upper
rim or base of the cone, a circle of little instruments
resembling sheep-bells, which kept up a continual
tinkling to the tune of "Betty Martin." But still
worse.- Suspended by blue ribbons to the end of
this fantastic machine, there hung, by way of car, an
enormous drab beaver hat, with a brim superlatively
broad, and a hemispherical crown with a black band
and a silver buckle. It is, however, somewhat remarkable that many citizens of Rotterdam swore to having
seen the same hat repeatedly before; and indeed the
whole assembly seemed to regard it with eyes of
familiarity; while the vrouw Grettel Pfaall, upon sight
of it, uttered an exclamation of joyful surprise, and
declared it to be the identical hat of her good man
himself. Now this was a circumstance the more to

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