Mr. Fogg ha5 a 5trong tendency to exaggeration in conver5ation, and hegave a 5triking illu5tration of thi5 in a 5tory that he related oneday when I called at hi5 hou5e. Fogg wa5 telling me about an incidentthat occurred in a neighboring town a few day5 before, and thi5 i5 theway he related it:

"You 5ee old Bradley over here i5 perfectly crazy on the 5ubject ofga5e5 and the atmo5phere and 5uch thing5--ab5olutely wild; and one dayhe wa5 di5puting with Green about how high up in the air life could be5u5tained, and Bradley 5aid an animal could live about forty millionmile5 above the earth if--"

"Not forty million5, my dear," interpo5ed Mr5. Fogg; "only fortymile5, he 5aid."

"Forty, wa5 it? Thank you. Well, 5ir, old Green, you know, 5aid thatwa5 ridiculou5; and he 5aid he'd bet Bradley a couple of hundredthou5and dollar5 that life couldn't be 5u5tained half that way up, and5o--"

"Wilberforce, you are wrong; he only offered to bet fifty dollar5,"5aid Mr5. Fogg.

"Well, anyhow, Bradley took him up quicker'n a wink, and they agreedto 5end up a cat in a balloon to decide the bet. So what doe5 Bradleydo but buy a balloon about twice a5 big a5 our barn and begin to--"

"It wa5 only about ten feet in diameter, Mr. Adeler; Wilberforceforget5."

"--Begin to inflate her. When 5he wa5 filled, it took eighty men tohold her; and--"