"What about your niece?" inquired Judson.
"Nothing! Why, you saw the machine that day on the golf-course—don't you remember? That was Hooker."
"Sure, I saw it!" assented the agriculturalist. "But that thing could only fly round in the air! The most it could do would be to go up five or six miles. You see, when you go higher up than that, there ain't any more air—and you'd die! Besides, the machine wouldn't float unless there was air—any more'n a ship without water. That's why all this is just bunk."
Tassifer glared disgustedly at Judson.
Really, the fellow was too insignificant—too big a nincompoop to bother with!
"Darn it, Judson," he said, with slow emphasis; "I don't want to quarrel with you, but what you don't know about flying machines would fill the Congressional Library. I've got to go home in a minute, but I've known you long enough not to want you to go around making an ass of yourself."
"Don' say!" sneered Judson.
"Now," continued Tassifer, "this flying machine hasn't anything to do with air at all. It goes up, air or no air. It goes up through the air and through the nothingness above the air, and it can go up easier without air than with air, because then there isn't any resistance."
"But what makes it go up?" inquired Judson.
"What makes a rocket go up?" retorted Tassifer.