hed 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! C