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With the means thus accruing I proceeded to procure at intervals , cambric muslin , very fine , in pieces of twelve yards each ; twine ; a lot of the varnish of caoutchouc ; a large and deep basket of wicker-work , made to order ; and several other articles necessary in the construction and equipment of a balloon of extraordinary dimensions . Iran and India are not the same countries , obviously , but nevertheless that is a perception that is emerging . My troubles not being already enough , in the estimation of the honorable body now assembled in the Capitol , they are beginning to institute inquiries , for my better amusement , into the circumstances of three fees paid me by the government , in the course of the four years that I have been here , for professional services foreign to my official duties - - a thing which has been continually done at all times , under this government , but which they affect to think a new affair entirely , and only an additional proof among ten thousand others of the waste of public money , by the rapacity , if not peculation , of those in office . It is very important for us to help and support the efforts to ensue that only true orphans are released for adoption — not children who have become separated from their parents . The balloon at first collapsed , then furiously expanded , then whirled round and round with sickening velocity , and finally , reeling and staggering like a drunken man , hurled me over the rim of the car , and left me dangling , at a terrific height , with my head downward , and my face outward , by a piece of slender cord about three feet in length , which hung accidentally through a crevice near the bottom of the wicker-work , and in which , as I fell , my left foot became most providentially entangled . I 'll ask that you proceed in the order that I introduced you ; first of all , Dr. Takeyh , then Secretary Carter and then Ambassador Indyk . I was neither astonished nor horror-stricken . Then , in a knowing manner , I felt in both my breeches pockets , and , missing therefrom a set of tablets and a tooth-pick case , endeavored to account for their disappearance , and , not being able to do so , felt inexpressibly chagrined . The pains in my head and ears returned , at intervals , with violence , and I still continued to bleed occasionally at the nose : but , upon the whole , I suffered much less than might have been expected . I had to rest several times before I could accomplish this man ; oeuvre ; but it was at length accomplished . Iran views itself now as an indispensable nation in the Middle East , with its own claims of hegemony and dominance . Having thus inserted a portion of the cloth forming the upper part of the bag , I refastened the loops — not to the hoop , for that would have been impossible , since the cloth now intervened , — but to a series of large buttons , affixed to the cloth itself , about three feet below the mouth of the bag ; the intervals between the buttons having been made to correspond to the intervals between the loops . He hopes that with a few months , he can then withdraw American troops to the periphery of Baghdad and leave the policing of the capital to Iraqi forces . He is likewise celebrated , as every one knows , for writing three several hands ; one only he himself can read , another nobody but his clerk can read , and a third neither himself , clerk , nor any body else can read . We , by contrast , are weighted down by important ongoing and unresolved conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan , a runaway North Korean nuclear program , as I mentioned earlier , our need to adjust cautiously and prudently to China 's political and military rise , and above all , to the sprouting of post-9 / 11 versions of al Qaeda . After 15 years of state deterioration and the absence of much governance , plus a brief period of brusque control by the Islamic Courts Union , Somalia desperately needs a period of tutelage under UN auspices . But it would ha split the seven sides of you wid the laffin ' to behould , jist then all at once , the consated behavior of Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns .