THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON
"We shall be floating in this sphere with absolutely no occupation."
"I wish I'd known———"
He peered out of the manhole. "Look!" he said. "There's something there!"
"Is there time?"
"We shall be an hour."
I looked out. It was an old number of Tit-Bits, that one of the men must have brought. Farther away in the corner I saw a torn Lloyds' News. I scrambled back into the sphere with these things. "What have you got?" I said.
I took the book from his hand and read, "The Works of William Shakespeare."
He coloured slightly. "My education has been so purely scientific—" he said apologetically.
"Never read him?"
"Never."
"He knew a little, you know—in an irregular sort of way."
"Precisely what I am told," said Cavor.
I assisted him to screw in the glass cover of the manhole, and then he pressed a stud to close the corresponding blind in the outer case. The little oblong of twilight vanished. We were in darkness.
For a time neither of us spoke. Although our case would not be impervious to sound, everything was very still. I perceived there was nothing to grip when the shock of our start should come, and I realised that I should be uncomfortable for want of a chair.
"Why have we no chairs?" I asked.
46
