Ruth was in earnest when she told Cyrus of her intention to become a
nurse. Some experience in that line, while in Europe, had fitted her
for the work and she found little difficulty in securing a position
in a Worcester Hospital. Possibly her prepossessing appearance was a
help. The Superintendent, being human, was not immune, perhaps, to the
influence of an interesting personality, especially in combination with
an attractive face and voice and figure.
After this interview at the hospital, about the middle of the day, she
took a return train for Springfield.
When she entered the car at the Worcester Station, and found a vacant
seat, she gave no special attention to the two men in the seat just
behind her own. She merely noticed that the carefully dressed young
man nearest the aisle had an intelligent wide awake face, and that his
companion--next the window--was suffering from a cold in the head of
aggravated dimensions. His aqueous eyes and swollen nose, his sneezes
and his busy handkerchief told the familiar and unromantic drama of a
mucous membrane at war with its owner.
The weather this day--a week or so after the interview with Cyrus--was
cloudy, damp and otherwise depressing. She felt, of course,
gratification in the success of her mission at the hospital. Her
thoughts, however, were not entirely rosy as she looked from the
car window on this homeward journey, gazing absently on the sunless
landscape. She had much to think about, and often, during this little
journey from Worcester she tried vainly to escape from unwelcome
memories. At the mention of a familiar name, however, these wandering
thoughts were centered suddenly on the conversation of the two men in
the seat behind her.
"Alton, Cyrus Alton. Guess you've met him."
"Yez, I thig zo. Kide of sleeby eyes, hasn'd he?"
"Yep. His eyes are sleepy, but, gee whiz! He does things."
"Whad thigs?"
"Oh, anything--if it's impossible."
"Didn'd he bake a lod of bunny all of a zudden?"
"Bet your life he did! Made it while you wait."
"How budge?"
"God knows."
"How did he do id?"
"God knows that too:--He and Alton. You can hear anything. Some say a
rich widow, others, a pirate's cave. Perhaps it's just a friendly tip
from his Partner."
"Who is his bardner?"
"The Almighty."
"You bead he is bious?"
"Nixy not! He's a scientist, and science and piety don't seem to
cuddle much. He has discovered--or his Big Partner has told him--some
secret of electricity that is just the humpingest thing out of jail.
It's going to revolutionize the whole human outfit; business, travel,
transportation. As to little things like manufactures in peace and
wholesale destruction in war, why, we've got to begin all over again.
You just can't digest it. And it's so simple that you laugh when you
think of it."
"Doe! Really?"
"Yep; that's no exaggeration."
"Thad's inderesdig. I have heard vague rubers aboud id bud nothing like
thad. Just whad is id?"
"Just what is it. Well, that's an easy question to ask. When he blabs
his secret then we'll all know. But he says it's so simple that it's
sure to be discovered some day."
"I spoze you doe him breddy well."
"Yep, in a way. He orders his electric stuff through us. A year ago
when he was so poor he used to foot it to save trolley fare the boss
trusted him for twelve hundreds dollars' worth of radium."
"Good for the boss! He was a zpord. Did he ever get his bunny bag?"
"Twice over. Oh, Alton didn't forget it. He's as straight as a string."
"Well, he bay be all ride in sub ways bud he busd be jusd aboud grazy
to sdard on thad jourdy."
"Oh, I dunno. He has done some big stunts already. And he's pretty
level headed."
"Yez, bud id seebs like suizide to be. How var away is Bars, eddyway?"
"Oh, just a step. I believe the astronomers call it about forty-eight
millions of miles."
"Vorty-eight billions of biles? Whew!"
"No, forty-eight millions--not billions."
The Rose Cold tried to laugh. "Yez I doe id iz--but with thiz invernal
drouble I gan'd prodounce by ebs."
"Of course; beg your pardon."
"Thad's all ride. But dell be, is he really goig to dry vor id?"
"Sure thing. He may have started already."
Here both men noticed in a careless way, a movement of the shoulders of
the girl in front of them when a hand went nervously to her face. And
it so happened that the Rose Cold's next words were the expression of
her own thoughts when he said:
"The bad's a vool!"
"No," said the younger man; "he's not a fool. He has done a lot of
figuring over it,--and experimenting. You see his machine is too good
to be true. It can shoot through space at the same rate as electric
waves, or waves of light."
"And how vasd is thad?"
"About a hundred and eighty thousand miles a second."
"Doe!"
"Yep."
"And you really believe id?"
"Sure."
"Id's sibly imbossible."
"I don't blame you for thinking so. But that's just why Alton likes it.
If it was possible it wouldn't interest him. Miracles are his daily
food. Gad, he's a wonder!"
"A hundred and eighty thouzand biles a zegond! Doe--thad's doo buch vor
bee."
"No wonder you don't believe it. It surely is going some. Beats oxen."
"Aboud how log would id taig him to ged there ad thad rade?"
Here came a silence while the younger man did some figuring. "About
five seconds. But of course no human being, even in an air-tight
cylinder, could keep his head--or anything else, at that rate. He
allows about twelve hours to get there."
"Dwelve hours! Vorty-eight billion biles in twelve hours! Why zo zlow?"
"Well, he's got to go slow through the six or seven miles of our
atmosphere. Then, he doesn't know what sort of atmosphere surrounds
Mars. So that'll take time like entering an unknown harbor. To be
really safe he'll have to jog along slowly--on an average of four or
five million miles an hour."