t, has the atmosphere been checked?"

"The air is pure and fit to breathe, sir."

"Instruct the others to drop the ladder."

"Yes sir."

A door in the side of the rocket opened laboriously and men began
climbing out: "Look!" said Mr. Milton, pointing. "There are trees and
grass and--over there, little bridges going over the water."

He pointed to a row of small white houses with green gardens and stony
paths.

Beyond the trees was a brick lodge, extended over a rivulet which foamed
and bubbled. Fishing poles protruded from the lodge window.

"And there, to the right!"

A steel building thirty stories high with a pink cloud near the top.
And, separated by a hedge, a brown tent with a barbeque pit before it,
smoke rising in a rigid ribbon from the chimney.

Mr. Chitterwick blinked and squinted his eyes. "What do you see?"

Distant and near, houses of stone and brick and wood, painted all
colors, small, large; and further, golden fields of wheat, each blown by
a different breeze in a different direction.

"I don't believe it," said Captain Webber. "It's a _park_--millions of
miles away from where a park could possibly be."

"Strange but familiar," said Lieutenant Peterson, picking up a rock.

Captain Webber looked in all directions. "We were lost. Then we see a
city where no city should be, on an asteroid not shown on any chart, and
we manage to land. And now we're in the middle of a place that belongs
in history-records. We may be crazy; we may all be wandering around in
space and dreaming."

The little man with the thin hair who had just stepped briskly from a
treeclump said, "Well, well," and the men jumped.

[Illustration]

The little man smiled. "Aren't you a trifle late or early or something?"

Captain Webber turned and his mouth dropped open.

"I hadn't been expecting you, gentlemen, to be perfectly honest," the
little man clucked, then: "Oh dear, see what you've done to Mr.
Bellefont's park. I do hope you haven't hurt him--no, I see that he is
all right."

Captain Webber followed the direction of the man's eyes and perceived an
old man with red hair seated at the base of a tree, apparently reading a
book.

"We are from Earth," said Captain Webber.

"Yes, yes."

"Let me explain: my name is Webber, these are my men."

"Of course," said the little man.

Mr. Chitterwick came closer, blinking. "Who is this that knows our
language?" he asked.

"Who--Greypoole, Mr. Greypoole. Didn't _they_