uncommon warmth. "If men had not been fools for so many ages they might
have done this, and more than this long ago. It's enough to make one
ashamed of his race! For countless centuries, instead of grasping the
power that nature had placed at the disposal of their intelligence, they
have idled away their time gabbling about nothing. And even since, at
last, they have begun to do something, look at the time that they have
wasted upon such petty forces as steam and 'electricity,' burning whole
mines of coal and whole lakes of oil, and childishly calling upon winds
and tides and waterfalls to help them, when they had under their thumbs
the limitless energy of the atoms, and no more understood it than a baby
understands what makes its whistle scream! It's inter-atomic force that
has brought us out here, and that is going to carry us a great deal
farther."

We simply listened in silence; for what could we say? The facts were more
eloquent than any words, and called for no commentary. Here we _were_,
out in the middle of space; and _there_ was the earth, hanging on
nothing, like a summer cloud. At least we knew where we were if we didn't
quite understand how we had got there.

Seeing us speechless, Edmund resumed in a different tone:

"We made a fairly good run during the night. You must be hungry by this
time, for you've slept late; suppose we have breakfast."

So saying, he opened a locker, took out a folding table, covered it
with a white cloth, turned on something resembling a little electric
range, and in a few minutes had ready as appetizing a breakfast of eggs
and as good a cup of coffee as I ever tasted. It is one of the
compensations of human nature that it is able to adjust itself to the