send it off for a long trip, and if it falls back it will be into the lake.”
“Wait a moment, then! Let’s put a good-bye message in it;” and so saying I took an old envelope from my pocket and wrote on the back of it with a pencil in a bold hand: “Farewell to Earth for ever!” Laughing, I put this inside and closed the lid.
Then the doctor turned down a thumb-screw upon a little wire which connected the poles, and stepped back quickly. Presently the forward end began to rise slowly, until it stood upright, but there it hesitated. The doctor stepped forward and gave the thumb-screw a hard turn down, and the model lifted immediately, rising at first gradually, but soon shooting off with the whizz of a rocket over the lake. We watched it as long as we could distinguish its dark outline.
“It will go a long way,” said the doctor. “I have never seen it make so good a start. It will lose itself in the lake far from here.”
We fastened up the front window and the port-hole, and started back to Whiting, where the doctor was to remain all night, so as to begin work early in the morning. Presently, as we walked along, the doctor said,—
“Well, Isidor, now you have seen a practical demonstration of the elementary working of the projectile. You also have some idea of all there is to be discovered up yonder in the red planet. You are the most interested in making and profiting by those discoveries. I want you to consent to go along.”
“Haven’t you secured a companion, then?” I inquired.
“Yes, I have a friend, a countryman of mine here, who will go wherever I say. He appreciates neither the risks nor the opportunities of the trip, still he will take my word for everything. Yet if I ask him to go I take the responsibility of his life as well as my own. He is not a suitable man, however, and I have really relied on you to come,” he insisted.
“My dear doctor, I have every faith in you and in the projectile, and I prophesy a most successful trip. I should like nothing better than the adventure; but you must not count on me; I could not leave my business. There’s a fever in my blood that thirsts for it!”
“Your business, indeed! You will never really amount to much till you have left it. It’s half a throw of dice and the other half a struggle of cut-throats!”
“That is what people say who know nothing at all about it,” I retorted. “It occupies a large and important place in the world’s commerce. Besides, I could not well leave Ruth and my uncle.”
“Isn’t it time you did something to make her proud of you, and to be worthy the education which he gave you? You have a chance now to be great. Isn’t that worth ten chances to be rich? What would you have thought of Galileo if he hadn’t had time to use the telescope after inventing it, but had devoted his time and talent to the maccaroni market? You are one man in ten million; you have an opportunity Columbus would have been proud of! Will you neglect it for mere gold-grubbing? Leave that to the rest of your race and to this money-mad Chicago. You come along with me. Let’s make this work-a-day world of ours take time to stop and shake hands with her heavenly neighbours!”
“You tempt me to do it, Doctor! Can you wait two or three days for me?”
“I can, but Mars won’t,” he answered laconically. “Besides, you must not tell any one that you are going.”
“If there are any two things I love, it’s a secret and a hurry! I will be here to-morrow night,” I exclaimed.
CHAPTER VI
Farewell to Earth
The next day I quietly bought in my wheat, and told Flynn I was thinking of taking a little vacation. I said I was worn out fighting the contrary market, and told him to run the office as if it were his own until I returned. At home I said nothing about the vacation, for I didn’t care to have my stories agree very perfectly. I simply packed a few necessities for the trip in a dress-suit case. My uncle was used to seeing me carry my evening clothes to the Club in this manner, and I casually told him I should remain the night this time.
I could not leave without kissing cousin Ruth good-bye, but this excited no suspicion, as it was a thing I did on every pretext. Then I slipped out and took back streets till I was several blocks away from the house. Taking a closed carriage here, I was driven to the same station and took the same train for Whiting as on the previous evening. I found the doctor awaiting me with a lantern. As we walked down the tracks in the twilight I said to him,—
“I never made so quick a preparation, nor attempted so long a trip. I have left my friends a lot of guessing! Now, how soon shall we be off?”
“Within an hour,” he answered. “Mars will not be directly overhead until midnight, but there is a little side trip I wish to make first, to test the projectile before we get too far above the Earth’s surface.”
The sky was densely cloudy, there was no Moon, and it was already growing very dark. As we began to have difficulty in finding the way, the doctor lighted his lantern. Peering up into the darkness, I said to him,—
“There is not a star visible. How are you to find your way in the heavens a night like this?”
“That is all perfectly easy. We shall soon rise far above those clouds, and then the stars will come out. Besides, I shall show you perfect daylight again before midnight.”
“I don’t see just how, but I will take your word for it, Doctor. I daresay you have thought it all out, and the whole trip will contain no surprises for you.”
“I have tried to think it all out and prepare for everything. But I am certain I have forgotten something. I have a feeling amounting to a dreadful presentiment that I have overlooked something important. I wish you would see if you can think of anything I have omitted.”
“The only really important thing I have remembered is half a dozen boxes of the best cigars,” I replied.
“Leave them right here in Whiting,” he said with emphasis. “We are carrying only a limited supply of pure air, and we cannot afford to contaminate it with tobacco smoke. No, sir, you can’t smoke on this trip.”
“Then I won’t go! Imagine not smoking for two whole months! Do you think I have sworn off?”
“No, not yet. But you must. It pollutes the air, which we must keep clean and fresh as long as possible.”
“Now, Doctor, you must let me have a good smoke once a day, just before pumping the air out of my compartment.”
“No, not even that. It is impossible to pump all the air out, and what is left mixes back with what is in my compartment. Once contaminated with tobacco smoke, we could never get it perfectly pure again.”
“Well, may I smoke on Mars, then? I will take them along for that. But, I warn you, I eat like a farm horse when I can’t smoke.”
“I have provided plenty to eat, but I know I have forgotten something. Mention something now, mention everything you can think of, so that I may see if it is provided for.”
“Have you any money?” I asked. “I have changed some into gold, and have a fairly heavy bag here.”
“Oh, yes, I have some gold and silver money, besides a lot of beads, trinkets, and gaudy tinsel things, such as earthly savages have been willing to barter valuable merchandise for.”
“So you are going on a trading expedition, are you?” I asked.
“Not exactly. I leave all that to your superior abilities. But we may find these things valuable to give as presents. Many of them are of tin, and if they do not happen to have that useful metal on Mars, they will be of rare value there.”
We had now reached the little grove where the projectile was hidden. I proceeded to open the rear port- hole, saying,—
“Let me look inside, and when I see what you have, some other necessary thing may suggest itself.”
“Let me go in first, for I am afraid you will allow the menagerie to escape,” he said, as he peered in by the light of the lantern. A diminutive fox terrier barked from the inside, and wagged his tail faster than a watch ticks, so glad he was to see us. The bright light also awakened a small white rabbit that had been asleep in the doctor’s compartment.
“You are taking these along for companions, I suppose?”
