"No, no, ladies!" cried Mr. Thirkell, leaping about.
They burst through the back of the stage and out a door, like a flood, bearing the poor man with them into a shed, and then out, quite suddenly, into an abandoned gymnasium.
"There it is!" said someone. "The rocket."
And then a silence fell that was terrible to entertain.
There was the rocket.
Mrs. Bellowes looked at it and her hands sagged away from Mr. Thirkell's collar.
The rocket was something like a battered copper pot. There were a thousand bulges and rents and rusty pipes and dirty vents on and in it. The ports were clouded over with dust, resembling the eyes of a blind hog.
Everyone wailed a little sighing wail.
"Is that the rocket ship Glory Be to the Highest?" cried Mrs. Bellowes, appalled.
Mr. Thirkell nodded and looked at his feet.