Gerald listened with a sympathetic air, for though he was naturally vastly amused, Tom looked so very much in earnest that he had not the heart to seem to ridicule his well-meant suggestion.
Promising, therefore, that he would make the generous offer known in the proper quarter, he dismissed the old sailor, just as his chum Jack came upon the scene.
Gerald did not notice at the moment that Jack looked serious too, and proceeded to tell him, with a laugh, what Clinch had been saying.
'Fancy the two honest old worthies talking this over, and coming sedately to me with such an offer!' said he. 'What an idea—that they should have a lookout placed outside, where the temperature runs far below that of liquid air! Jupiter!'
Then he noticed, for the first time, that his chum was also looking troubled.
'Why, what's amiss?' he asked. 'You and Tom Clinch seem alike to-day—you both remind me of the Knight of the Troubled Countenance. You look as if you wanted cheering up. You should read this book I 've got hold of; it would make you laugh.'
'What is it about?'
'It's written by some old Martian crank of an astronomer, and contains his speculations upon the subject of the Earth. They call us, you know, the evening star; for so our planet appears to them, just as Venus does to us. Well, he is writing and speculating about their evening star—that is, about our world—and he declares his conviction that it cannot be inhabited by human beings like those living on Mars. He argues that because the light from our Earth shines with a bluish tint, therefore, if there are people on it, they must have blue skins. He brings forward a lot of most convincing arguments to support this theory, and winds up by declaring that if our world is really inhabited, it can only be by a race of ape-like creatures, with blue skins and bodies partly covered with green hair!'
'H'm! So much for some people's scientific theories. However, I 've got something else to talk to you about just now. While you 've been reading and dreaming, and going about with your head in the clouds'——
'Above the clouds, Jack—far, far above the clouds! Be practical, now. Consider! Are we not far above the clouds?'