"'If you get Dad into this,' said the other, 'he'll for sure give it to the two of us, but good. And we'll just bet that he won't think you're too old to get it, either.'
"Jim waved the argument aside. 'He'll probably be right, too,' he commented absently, acting as if he were listening to something the rest of us couldn't hear. Then he nodded decisively.
"'Your Delta Crucis is all fixed up right, now, sir,' he told me in positive tones. 'There's even a tank for you to keep the whale in. But I suggest you not waste any time in getting the beast to Penguin, because the ship won't stay this way too long. Then it'll revert to the way it used to be before you ran into us.'
"He noticed my expression of concentrated unhappiness.
"'Oh, not while you are carrying the blue whale,' he assured me. 'As soon as you finish the job, or in a couple of months if you don't get started on it. There is nothing to be worried about, sir.'
"Then he heaved a kind of deep, shuddering sigh, and said, 'We have got to go now. Good luck to you.'
"'The same to you,' I said automatically. The two brats gave me a withering look of scorn, apparently for expressing such impossible sentiments, and then all three Monahans disappeared."
Captain Hannah took another whiff of rhial and then stared at the beaker broodingly.
"Well," I asked. "Did you get the whale to Penguin? And was the Prinkip pleased? Or did you just sit around and drink rhial until your ship popped back to its normal size?"