ink of a meteorite dissipating itself in
our atmosphere.

Said George: "That may iron out all the tensions." Even as he spoke, the
conflicting winds came to rest; the levels filled; the laterals died out
in long, easy swells; the air-ways were smoothed before us. In less
than three minutes the covey round the Mark Boat had shipped their
power-lights and whirred away upon their businesses.

"What's happened?" I gasped. The nerve-store within and the volt-tingle
without had passed: my inflators weighed like lead.

"God, He knows!" said Captain George soberly "That old shooting-star's
skin-friction has discharged the different levels. I've seen it happen
before. Phew: What a relief!"

We dropped from ten to six thousand and got rid of our clammy suits.
Tim shut off and stepped out of the Frame. The Mark Boat was coming up
behind us. He opened the colloid in that heavenly stillness and mopped
his face.

"Hello, Williams!" he cried. "A degree or two out o' station, ain't
you?"

"May be," was the answer from the Mark Boat. "I've had some company this
evening."

"So I noticed. Wasn't that quite a little draught?"

"I warned you. Why didn't you pull out north? The east-bound packets
have."

"Me? Not till I'm running a Polar consumptives' sanatorium boat. I was
squinting through a colloid before you were out of your cradle, my son."

"I'd be the last man to deny it," the captain of the Mark Boat replies
softly. "The way you handled her just now--I'm a pretty fair judge of
traffic in a volt-hurry--it was a thousand revolutions beyond anything
even I've ever seen."

Tim's back supples visibly to this oiling. Captain George on the c.
p. winks and points to the portrait of a singularly attractive maiden
pinned up on Tim's telescope bracket above the steering-wheel.

I see. Wholly and entirely do I see!

There is some talk overhead of "coming round to tea on Friday," a brief
report of the derelict's fate, and Tim volunteers as he descends: "For
an A. B. C. man young Williams is less of a high-tension fool than some.
Were you thinking of taking her on, George? Then I'll just have a look
round that port-thrust seems to me it's a trifle warm--and we'll jog
along."

The Mark Boat hums off joyously and hangs herself up in her appointed
eyrie. Here she will stay a shutterless observatory; a life-boat
station; a salvage tug; a court of ultimate appeal-cum-meteorological
bureau for three hundred miles in all directions, ti