Mr. Bernard, with a twinkle in his eye, watched them enjoy their food. In particular, he watched Astro.
"I warned you, sir," whispered Tom, as the Venusian went to work on his second steak.
"I wouldn't have missed this for anything," said Bernard. He smiled, lit a cigar of fine Mercurian leaf tobacco and settled back comfortably.
"And now," he said, "let me explain why I was so anxious to have dinner with you. I'm in the import-export business. Ship to Mars, mostly. But all my life I've wanted to be a spaceman."
"Well, what was the trouble, Mr. Bernard?" asked Roger.
The man in black sighed. "Couldn't take the acceleration, boys. Bad heart. I send out more than five hundred cargoes a year, to all parts of the solar system; but myself, I've never been more than a mile off the surface of the earth."
"It sure must be disappointing—to want to blast off, and know that you can't," said Tom.
"I tried, once," said Bernard, with a rueful smile. "Yup! I tried." He gazed thoughtfully out the window.
"When I was your age, about twenty, I wanted to get into Space Academy worse than anybody I'd ever met." He paused. "Except for one person. A boyhood buddy of mine—named Kenneth—"
"Excuse me, sir," cut in Roger quickly, "but I think we'd better get back to our car. With this big liberty in front of us, we need a lot of rest."