Having all things in readiness, and prudently waiting for fair weather, he embarked on his grand experiment on the 2nd of May, 1835, announcing 4 p.m. as the hour of departure. But by that time the inflation, having only proceeded for three hours, the balloon was but half full, and then the populace began to behave as in such circumstances they always will. They were incredulous, and presently grew troublesome. In vain the harnessing of the car was proceeded with as though all were well. For all was not well, and when the aeronaut stepped into his car with only fifteen pounds of sand and a few instruments he must have done so with much misgiving. Still, he had friends around who might have been useful had they been less eager to help. But these simply crowded round him, giving him no elbow room, nor opportunity for trying the "lift" of his all-too-empty globe. Moreover, some would endeavour to throw the machine upward, while others as strenuously strove to keep it down, and at last the former party prevailed, and the balloon, being fairly cast into the air, grazed a neighbouring chimney and then plunged into an adjacent plot, not, however, before the distracted traveller had flung away all his little stock of sand. There now was brief opportunity for free action, and to the first bystander who came running up Wise gave the task of holding the car in check. To the next he handed out his instruments, his coat, and also his boots, hoping thus to get away; but his chance had not yet come, for once again the crowd swarmed round him, keeping him prisoner with good-natured but mistaken interference, and drowning his voice with excited shouting. Somehow, by word and gesture, he gave his persecutors to understand that he wished to speak, and then he begged them only to give him a chance, whereupon the crowd fell back, forming a ring, and leaving only one man holding the car. It was a moment of suspense, for Wise calculated that he had only parted with some eighteen pounds since his first ineffectual start from the filling ground; but it was enough, and in another moment he was sailing up clear above the crowd. So great, as has been already shewn, is often the effect of parting with the last few pounds of dead weight in a well-balanced balloon.