XVI. +“A Race of Laughing Philosophers”+ 280 XVII. +Small Profit and Quick Return+ 306 CHAPTER I THE STORY OF THE _REGINA_ “... ’Tis a ditty Not of these days; but long ago ’twas told.” (+Keats.+) “What’s that for, Gilbert?” asked Ross Ainley, in surprise, as his chum, Gilbert Eastern, flung an egg into the stream which gurgled past them. “It’s rotten, old chap, rotten as a man’s word of honour,” replied Gilbert. “Thank goodness it’s the last of the batch, and I get no more from Flatters. He assured me he had manufactured every one and all had stood Government tests, therefore he could guarantee them. I don’t want to spoil our little picnic here at the North Pole or I’d go back and make the fellow eat the thing; see, even that fish discards it!” as a fish rose to the surface, nosed the egg a little, and then darted off. “No wonder!” he commented, and then without further remark he reached for another egg and, cutting off the top of the capsule, at once became absorbed in extracting the contents—a peculiar pink-coloured paste, which he spread on a cake of brown meal and commenced to eat in silent enjoyment. His friend Ross, who had just finished his meal, leaned over the mossy bank and half filled a drinking vessel with water from the stream; after sterilising it he rummaged in the basket, and bringing out a small box extracted a pellet, which he placed in the vessel and crumbled with his already sterilised fingers. Instantly the water became turbid, and, a second later, opaque-white as the powder entered into solution, and he drank off what appeared to be fresh milk. Having satisfied his thirst, he sprayed some antiseptic liquid on his hands and the glass, threw his pulp serviette away, and leaving the other things till his friend had finished also, lay down on his back full length, with his elbows up and hands clasped under his head, gazing in silence into the blue sky overhead between their two airships which were riding at anchor, their vanes gently moving in the wind just sufficiently to maintain them at an altitude of about twenty feet. They were in a small clearing in the heart of a magnificent forest which extended for miles in all directions and was, perhaps, the finest and most picturesque portion of all that beautiful district of the North Pole which was appropriately called ‘The Garden of the Earth.’ After passing through miles of moss and peat and bog, the river Pole entered this forest some ten or twelve miles distant as a gurgling brook, tumbling and twisting and twining amongst the boulders in its bed; but other streams, longing for closer companionship, drew nearer and nearer till they joined it, and together they all came flowing down in noisy