"Thad's all ride. But dell be, is he really goig to dry vor id?" "Sure thing. He may have started already." Here both men noticed in a careless way, a movement of the shoulders of the girl in front of them when a hand went nervously to her face. And it so happened that the Rose Cold's next words were the expression of her own thoughts when he said: "The bad's a vool!" "No," said the younger man; "he's not a fool. He has done a lot of figuring over it,--and experimenting. You see his machine is too good to be true. It can shoot through space at the same rate as electric waves, or waves of light." "And how vasd is thad?" "About a hundred and eighty thousand miles a second." "Doe!" "Yep." "And you really believe id?" "Sure." "Id's sibly imbossible." "I don't blame you for thinking so. But that's just why Alton likes it. If it was possible it wouldn't interest him. Miracles are his daily food. Gad, he's a wonder!" "A hundred and eighty thouzand biles a zegond! Doe--thad's doo buch vor bee." "No wonder you don't believe it. It surely is going some. Beats oxen." "Aboud how log would id taig him to ged there ad thad rade?" Here came a silence while the younger man did some figuring. "About five seconds. But of course no human being, even in an air-tight cylinder, could keep his head--or anything else, at that rate. He allows about twelve hours to get there." "Dwelve hours! Vorty-eight billion biles in twelve hours! Why zo zlow?" "Well, he's got to go slow through the six or seven miles of our atmosphere. Then, he doesn't know what sort of atmosphere surrounds Mars. So that'll take time like entering an unknown harbor. To be really safe he'll have to jog along slowly--on an average of four or five million miles an hour." The Rose Cold laughed. "Beads vairy dales, doesn'd id?" "To a frazzle." "But the bravesd bad in the world gan'd go all day withoud breathig." "True enough. But Alton has the same system of oxygen cylinders as the U-boats--only better. More condensed and lasts longer. Uses same air more times without deteriorating." "Well, whadever habbens, he busd be glever." "Clever! He beats the devil." "Will he ever gum bag, Jibby?" "Dunno." "I subbose the gradest danger is in being hid by a medeoride. I understand those rogs are always shoodig about in spaze." "Yep; and all the way in size from a liver pill to a state house. But that isn't what'll knock him out." "Berhabs dod, bud I shouldn'd gare do be there iv one habbened to hid him." "Right you are. He'd have about as much show as a bottle of ginger ale colliding with a locomotive. But astronomers say they are not so very numerous. What he's most afraid of himself is some sudden electric disturbance in his own machine that will put his own nervous system out of commission. You see nobody really knows what is going on in space. And if his nerves or lungs or brain go back on him, in anyway--Ping!--he's a goner."