"So," he continued, "remembering these wrongs, we feel that we can no longer associate with you. As for Munn"—here he turned a fastidious eye in my direction—"he is utterly impossible to men of our social standing. This planet, you tell us, is three thousand miles in diameter. May we request that you and Munn take one end of the diameter and leave the other end to us?"
The professor laughed softly and seated himself.
"Sit down, Mr. Munn," said he. "We have been ostracized by our fellow-exiles. Let us see how well they get along without us."
"We bid you farewell," finished Meigs loftily.
Thereupon he turned the key, threw open the door—and dropped on the threshold as though he had been shot! Markham and Popham cried aloud, threw their arms across their faces and reeled back.
A blast as from a furnace drove in at the opening, filling the chamber like a draft from Hades. I could scarcely breathe in the stifling atmosphere.
"Hurry, Munn!" cried Quinn. "Drag Meigs away from the door or he'll be burned to a crisp!"
The broker was already smoking when I caught his ankles and jerked him inside. The professor slammed the door.
Presently the air within the car readjusted itself to normal conditions. Meigs, red as a beet and breathing heavily, was little the worse for his warm experience.
"I fancy, Mr. Meigs," cooed the professor, "that you will wish to avail yourself of one of my anti-temperature baths before cutting loose from myself and Mr. Munn. There is plenty of water left for all of us, and I will go aloft, set up the collapsible tub, and make the bath ready. We have alighted in the tropics, evidently, and at the period of mid-summer. The temperature is about five hundred degrees, fahrenheit."