Droop scratched his head thoughtfully and made no reply. Surely it would have been hard to point out any charms in the endless plain of opaque ice hummocks, unrelieved save by that gaunt steel pole.
"Where's the open sea?" Rebecca asked, after a few moments' pause. "Dr. Kane said the' was an open sea up here."
"Oh, Dr. Kane!" said Droop, contemptuously. "He's no 'count fer modern facts."
"What I can't understand," said Phœbe, "is how it comes that, if nobody's ever been up here, they all seem to know there's a North Pole here."
"That's a fact," Rebecca exclaimed. "How'd they know about it? The' ain't anythin' in the Bible 'bout it, is the'?"
Droop looked more cheerful at this and answered briskly:
"Oh, they don't know 'bout it. Ye see, that pole there ain't a nat'ral product of the soil at all. Et's the future man done that—the man who invented this Panchronicon and brought me up here before. He told me how that he stuck that post in there to help him run this machine 'round and 'round fer cuttin' meridians."
"Oh!" exclaimed both sisters together.
"Yes," Droop continued. "D'ye see thet big iron ring 'round the pole, lyin' on the ground?"
"I don't see any ground," said Rebecca, ruefully.