re of Lake Michigan,
near by. This will be enough to demonstrate to you our control of
gravity. The experimental model is there also, and we will send it
off on a trip if you like. Everything will be ready for the start to
Mars to-morrow night."

I dined early and caught the train specified at Twenty-Second Street.
The doctor was looking for me from the rear platform of a car. It was a
local train, and crept slowly out through the smoky blackness of South
Chicago, illuminated here and there by the flaming chimneys of her great
iron furnaces, to the little city of pungent smells, of petroleum tanks
and oil refineries, in Northern Indiana. The doctor was explaining the
difficulties he had experienced in getting a companion for the trip.

"Men whom I could hire for mere wages are not intelligent enough to
understand the workings of the projectile, or to comprehend the risks
they may run. Besides, their companionship and assistance during the
trip through space and on a new planet is worth nothing. On the other
hand, I could not afford to go about explaining the workings of so
important an invention miscellaneously to people capable of
understanding it in an experimental search for a companion. I might not
find one among twenty, and I would be tossing my secrets to the winds,
and inviting all the daily papers to send their representatives to
report the start. My reputation as a scientist, on the other side, is
too dear to me to risk a public failure. If the projectile acts, as I am
confident it must, on our return we shall take out letters patent and
form our company to exploit the business features. But primarily, this
is a test of the projectile and a journey of exploration and research.
Business afterward."

Naturally on this point we had disagreed. My motto had always been
"Business first!" and I had desired to have the patents secured
immediately. But the doctor would not consent to the filing of the
required specifications and claims, lest his secrets should be learned
before success was demonstrated. As a compromise, the doctor had agreed
to leave the necessary descriptions and data in a sealed envelope with
me, which I was to be at liberty to open and place on record at any time
during the doctor's absence that I might deem it necessary in order to
protect our rights.

"Whom have you finally secured to go with you, then?" I asked.

"I will tell you that after we have finished to-night's work," s