It was like this.
I was drawing up, in my mind, tentative plans (my purpose was yet a secret) when one day Milton Rhodes came in, and, after smiling in somewhat enigmatic fashion for some moments, he suddenly asked:
"I say, Bill, how would you like to see the stars, the sun again?"
"The sun? Milton, what do you mean?"
"That I am going back to the surface, out onto the snow and ice of Rainier, back to Seattle. I thought that you would want to go along."
"What in the world," I exclaimed, "are you going back for?"
"There are many things that we ought to have here in Drome; a book of logarithms, the best that I can get, is one of them. We'll get those things, or as many as we can, for it would, of course, be impossible to bring them all. We'll wind up our sublunary affairs, and, hurrah, then back to Drome! What do you say to that, old tillicum?"
"What does Lepraylya say?"
"That I may go; otherwise, of course, there would be no going. At first she wouldn't even hear of it. She feared that it might be impossible for us to maintain secrecy—that some of our precious politicians might get down into Drome. I am sure she believes that the kingdom would have more to fear from half a dozen of those sons of Proteus than from an army of sixty thousand men. And, bless her heart, when I think of some of their blunders, asininity, hypocrisy, lying, stupidity, coat-turning and sheer insanity, I am of opinion that there is not much exaggeration, if any, in that idea of hers.
"But I have at last gained her consent. With our large party, there can not be any danger."