"They were ovens," he answered. "Food is put in them and sent up to the hot surface of the planet. When properly cooked it is lowered again."
Association with this learned man was a liberal education in itself. I can never be sufficiently thankful to fate for causing our paths to cross.
"You think, then," said I, "that we were blown to the top of one of the hills and fell into a shaft used by the traveling ovens?"
"Nothing else could have happened."
The professor gave a start and looked worried.
"Dear, dear!" he exclaimed. "I was quite forgetting our friends. While we are here feasting and taking our ease, they are battling with the storm, and are no doubt in peril of their lives. How very, very thoughtless we are, Mr. Munn."
I was not greatly exercised over the matter. The trust magnates believed that there was a figurative gulf between myself and them, and I was more than willing that this gulf should grow from the symbol to the reality.
"I doubt if we can return to the outside of the planet at present, professor," said I, "and even if we were able to do so, what could we accomplish in the face of that tremendous storm?"
"True, very true," said he.
"That oven," said I, by way of taking his mind from the plutocrats, "must have been very warm when we landed on it and descended to these regions."