"Where is the king's treasure house? If that has not been recovered, calamity threatens our expedition to the planet Terra!"
"The treasure house has been broken and wrecked," replied the professor, "but my friends, Mr. Gilhooly and Mr. Munn, are returning the gold to his majesty in their coats."
"Why should Mr. Gilhooly steal the gold and then help to return it?" came incredulously from Olox. "Is it simply a vagary of his unbalanced mind?"
"I am pleased to say, Chief Olox, that his mind is no longer unbalanced," returned the professor, warning me to silence with a look as I was about to operate my talking machine. "Mr. Gilhooly is now as sane as you or I."
Olox looked worried.
"I declare," said he, "I don't know how the president and board of directors of the Interplanetary will regard this unexpected occurrence."
"They should feel overjoyed at the unclouding of so bright a mind as Mr. Gilhooly's."
"But what if it interferes with the traffic of the road? They have been running limited trains on a schedule heretofore beyond their wildest dreams. His majesty farmed out the concession to the management of the road for ninety-nine years, on a cash basis. If the traction power proves unavailable, a demand will be made on the king for a return of the money—and just now any depletion of the imperial coffers might prove fatal to the projected expedition."
It was just as well that the ex-magnates could not comprehend what was going on between the word-boxes. The utilitarian views of the king, as exemplified in Gilhooly's case, would have jarred somewhat on their conceit and self-esteem.
I noticed that a gleam of hope crossed Quinn's face when Olox spoke of a possible failure of the king's plan of conquest through lack of the sinews of war. But the hope died away almost instantly when Quinn reflected, as I did, that the monarch was as unscrupulous as he was resourceful.