question of how we should make the stuff next.

"Of course we must make it again," he said, with a sort of glee I had not
expected in him, "of course we must make it again. We have caught a
Tartar, perhaps, but we have left the theoretical behind us for good and
all. If we can possibly avoid wrecking this little planet of ours, we
will. But--there must be risks! There must be. In experimental work there
always are. And here, as a practical man, _you_ must come in. For my own
part it seems to me we might make it edgeways, perhaps, and very thin. Yet
I don't know. I have a certain dim perception of another method. I can
hardly explain it yet. But curiously enough it came into my mind, while I
was rolling over and over in the mud before the wind, and very doubtful
how the whole adventure was to end, as being absolutely the thing I
ought to have done."

Even with my aid we found some little difficulty, and meanwhile we kept at
work restoring the laboratory. There was plenty to do before it became
absolutely necessary to decide upon the precise form and method of our
second attempt. Our only hitch was the strike of the three labourers, who
objected to my activity as a foreman. But that matter we compromised after
two days' delay.





Chapter 3