“The sooner the better,” he replied. “I’ll wait for you.”
“Is there anything I should bring along? The camera?”
“Your notebook is all you’ll need,” he assured me. “I’m not yet ready
to test it underground. See you soon.” He hung up.
I hung up myself and had half risen from my desk when I suddenly
stiffened. _Underground._ His diving suit worked underground! I was
plenty startled, but as I thought it over I decided that Marchare
must have been mistaken. He’d meant _underwater_--just a slip of the
tongue. Sure, that was it. Who ever heard of a diving suit that went
underground? It was too fantastic.
I felt better almost immediately. I got my hat and notebook and went
out into the bright sunshine and hailed a cab.
On the way to Marchare’s laboratory I did some thinking. He was a
brilliant man capable of almost anything, a man who seldom made
mistakes. His tongue wouldn’t slip--not on a thing like that. If he
said underground he meant underground. It was a statement I had to
accept.
By the time the cab pulled up in front of Marchare’s laboratory in
Alexandria I knew exactly where I stood. I knew for sure that he had
gone and invented a diving suit that would go underground.
“Doc” Marchare was dressed in his usual clothes, which is just another
way of saying he looked as though he’d only recently got back from an
unsuccessful, but jovial panhandling expedition.
“You got over here quickly, Carl. You’re anxious to get going, eh?”