"'Scuse me!" exclaimed the colored man hastily, as he started back
toward the kitchen.

"Why, what's the matter?" asked Jack. "Don't you want to go out, and
walk around the moon, and pick up diamonds?"

"Diamonds am all right," answered Washington, "but I jest done fo'got
dat I ain't fed my Shanghai rooster to-day, an' I 'spects he's mighty
hungry. You folks go on out an' pick up a few obde sparklers, an' when
I gits de Shanghai fed I'll prognosticate myse'f inter conjunction wif
yo' all."

"You mean you'll join us?" asked Mark.

"Dat's what I means, suah."

"Why, I do believe Washington's afraid!" cried Jack jokingly.

"Askeered! Who's afraid?" retorted the colored man boldly. "Didn't I
done tole yo' dat I got t' feed my rooster? Heah him crowin' now? Yo'
all go 'long, an' I'll meet yo' later," and with that Washington
disappeared quickly.

"Well, he'll soon pluck up courage and come out," declared Professor
Henderson. "Let him go now, and we'll go out and see what it is like on
the moon."

"I hope we find those diamonds," murmured Jack, and Mark smiled.

In order not to admit the poisonous gases into the projectile, it was