“It will go up at once!”

“Exactly. With no more disturbance than firing a big gun.”

“But what good will that do?”

“I’m going up with it!”

I put down my teacup and stared at him.

“Imagine a sphere,” he explained, “large enough to hold two people and their luggage. It will be made of steel lined with thick glass; it will contain a proper store of solidified air, concentrated food, water-distilling apparatus, and so forth. And enamelled, as it were, on the outer steel——”

“Cavorite?”

“Yes.”

“But how will you get inside?”

“There was a similar problem about a dumpling.”