only took these as a precaution."

"You mean to try moral suasion, I suppose," drawled Jack. "Well, anyhow,
I hope they'll be glad to see us, and since it is Venus that we are going
to visit, I don't look for much fighting. I'm glad you made it Venus
instead of Mars, Edmund, for, from all I've heard of Mars with its
fourteen-foot giants, I don't think I should like to try the pirate
business in that direction."

We all laughed at Jack's fancies; but there was something tremendously
thrilling in the idea. Think of landing on another world! Think of
meeting inhabitants there! Really, it made one's head spin.

"Confound it, this is all a dream," I said to myself. "I'm on my back in
bed with a nightmare. I'll kick myself awake."

But do what I would I could make no dream of it. On the contrary, I felt
that I had never been quite so much awake in all my life before.

After a while we all settled down to take the thing in earnest. And then
the charm of it began to master our imaginations. We talked over the
prospects in all their aspects. Edmund said little, and Henry nothing,
but Jack and I were stirred to the bottom of our romantic souls. Henry
was different. He had no romance in his make-up. He always looked at the
money in a thing. To his mind, going to Venus was playing the fool, when
we had at our command the means of owning the earth.

"Edmund," he said, after mumbling for a while under his breath, "this is
the most utter tomfoolery that ever I heard of. Here you've got an
invention that would revolutionize mechanics, and instead of utilizing it