you rush off into space on a hairbrained adventure. You might have been
twenty times a billionaire inside of a year if you had stayed at home and
developed the thing. Why, it's folly; pure, beastly folly! Going to
Venus! What can you make on Venus?"

Edmund only smiled. After a little he said:

"Well, I'm sorry for you, Henry. But then you're cut out on the ordinary
pattern. But cheer up. When we go back, perhaps I'll let you take out a
patent, and you can make the billions. For my part, Venus is more
interesting to me than all the money you could pile up between the
Atlantic Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. Why," he continued, warming up,
and straightening with a certain pride which he had, "am I not the
Columbus of Space?--And you my lieutenants," he added, with a smile.

"Right you are," cried Jack enthusiastically. "The Columbus of Space,
that's the ticket! Where's old Archimedes now? Buried, by Jo! _He_
couldn't go to Venus! And what need we care for your billionaires?"

Edmund patted Jack on the back, and I rather sympathized with his
enthusiasm myself.

The time ran on, and we watched anxiously the day-hand of the calendar
clock. Soon it had marked a week; then ten days; then a fortnight. We
knew we must be getting very close to our goal, yet up to this time
neither Jack, nor Henry, nor I had caught a glimpse of Venus. Edmund,
however, had seen it, but he told us that in order to do so he had been
obliged to alter our course because the planet was directly in the eye of
the sun. In consequence of the change of course we were now approaching
Venus from the east--flanking her, so to speak--and Edmund described her