Ripon was sprawled back at his ease, a smoldering pipe in one hand and his glass in the other. He was smiling at Larry's startled expression, but he seemed to be serious. Vague memories were stirring in Larry Gibson's mind, memories of things he had read and heard in the old days before he became a drifter whose main effort was to avoid thinking at all. Crispin Gillingwater Ripon! He had heard the name before, though it had been in connection with abstract science rather than with practical rocket-ship flying. Somehow, his memory of the name was connected with failure, with public derision, and with rumors of outright charlatanism. "I think I've heard of you," he said cautiously. "In that case you have heard no good!" Ripon said cheerfully. "I am at present the problem child of the scientific world. The horrible example! A laughing stock for seedy professors and callow students. Mention of my name produces hoarse guffaws of mirth in scientific circles at the moment, young feller, but it will be different when I return from my successful trip to the Moon. Better come along." "Why are you going at this time?" "Because there are radium salts on the Moon, I am convinced. This world hasn't treated me with much respect, young feller, but I've had a good time on it for my sixty-odd years and I'm fond of the old place. I want to make the trip and get back before the Gray Death wipes out our population--including myself!" "But you can't take a rocket-ship to the Moon," Larry protested. "Professor Staunton's attempt proved that thirty years ago." "All it proved was that neither Staunton nor his ship were ever heard of again," Ripon said calmly. "I knew Staunton well. He was a good man, a careful man--but he wasn't Crispin Gillingwater Ripon! I'm making some changes of my own in the _Sky Maid_; changes that should spell the difference between success and failure." When he looked back at it later, Larry had only a hazy recollection of the rest of that evening. The rum got to him. The one thing that did stick in his mind was a snatch of song that he and Ripon had sung over and over again, pounding their glasses on the table while the other men in the dingy little barroom stared at them in good-natured derision. "There's only a few of us left, And we never were worth a damn, But I'll follow my vagrant star, That's the kind of a guy I am! (Drink it down!) That's the kind of a guy I am!" * * * * * Larry Gibson awoke the next morning to the sound of many hammers beating on a steel shell. There was also a sharp and comprehensive ache that started at the top of his head, which felt as though someone had been hitting him with the butt of a ray-gun, and spread all down through his body. He groaned and sat up.