up and down; my tongue was unloosened.

"I'm beginning to take it in," I said; "I'm beginning to take it in." The

transition from doubt to enthusiasm seemed to take scarcely any time at

all. "But this is tremendous!" I cried. "This is Imperial! I haven't

been dreaming of this sort of thing."

Once the chill of my opposition was removed, his own pent-up excitement

had play. He too got up and paced. He too gesticulated and shouted. We

behaved like men inspired. We were men inspired.

"We'll settle all that!" he said in answer to some incidental difficulty

that had pulled me up. "We'll soon settle that! We'll start the drawings

for mouldings this very night."

We'll start them now," I responded, and we hurried off to the laboratory

to begin upon this work forthwith.

I was like a child in Wonderland all that night. The dawn found us both

still at work--we kept our electric light going heedless of the day. I

remember now exactly how these drawings looked. I shaded and tinted while

Cavor drew--smudged and haste-marked they were in every line, but

wonderfully correct. We got out the orders for the steel blinds and frames

we needed from that night's work, and the glass sphere was designed within

a week. We gave up our afternoon conversations and our old routine

altogether. We worked, and we slept and ate when we could work no longer

The First Men In The Moon