"Berhabs dod, bud I shouldn'd gare do be there iv one habbened to hid him."
"Right you are. He'd have about as much show as a bottle of ginger ale colliding with a locomotive. But astronomers say they are not so very numerous. What he's most afraid of himself is some sudden electric disturbance in his own machine that will put his own nervous system out of commission. You see nobody really knows what is going on in space. And if his nerves or lungs or brain go back on him, in anyway—Ping!—he's a goner."
After a pause the Rose Cold spoke in a more serious tone.
"Well, I taig off my had to him. It's a big thig, thad zord of gourage."
"I should say! And he knows himself there isn't one chance in a hundred of his ever touching this little earth again."
Here the attention of both men was drawn to the girl in front of them, who suddenly started from her seat—with both hands pressed hard against her face. She stood for a moment as if in pain, or under some mental disturbance. Then, sinking back into her seat, she appeared to be looking quietly out of the window during the short remainder of the journey. Although her action caused them no further interest, nor curiosity, it served to divert their talk from Cyrus Alton—a subject apparently exhausted—to other matters of no interest to Ruth Heywood.
