As usual, however, Waldo was first to rally, and, after silently moving around the aerostat, upon which the professor was already busily at work by the last gleams of the vanished sun, he paused, legs separated, and hands thrust deep into pockets, head perking on one side as he spoke, drawlingly:
“I say, uncle Phaeton?”
“What is it, Waldo?”
“It'll never do to breathe even a hint of all this, will it?”
“Why so, pray?”
“Whoever heard it would swear we were bald-headed liars right from Storytown! And yet,—did it really happen, or have I been dreaming all the way through?”
Professor Featherwit gave a brief, dry chuckle at this, rising erect to cast a deliberate glance around their present location, then speaking:
“Without I am greatly mistaken, my dear boy, you will have still other marvellous happenings to relate ere we return to what is, rightfully or wrongfully, called civilisation.”
“Is that so? Then you really reckon—”
“For one thing, my lad, we are now fairly entered upon a terra incognita, so far as our own race is concerned. In other words,—behold, the Olympics!”