"But I can't understand, Dutch, why you seemed so put out when I announced my intention of going to Europe via the Tube. Why, I can remember the day when that would have tickled you to death."
"You followed the digging of the Tube, didn't you?"
"Yes, of course."
"You remember the volcano and lava seams?"
"Yes."
"Well, I do not believe that the crack was a pressure crevice. If it had been, we were far enough below the ocean floor to have partly relieved the situation by the unusually solid building of the Tube. The tremendous shell of this new type of specially hardened metal—"
"And the rich concrete that was used as filling! That was one job no one slipped up on. I remember how you watched it—"
"Yet the crack has widened, Bob, since the Tube was completed."
"How can you be certain?"
"By the amount of water coming through the drain pipes."