and I going onwards to the sun, and the party rejoining at Mercury, en route homewards. And, lastly, I had made sure that our distinguished friend, White, was to take personal charge, on this particular occasion, of his splendid solar liner, which was to go in its turn at the time about which we had calculated to be ready.
Let me here allude for a moment to my excellent and intimate old friend White, whose nautical genius had now raised him to the highest position in the great ether-ocean navigation of our day. He is, in fact, at the head of the great companies and chief fleets of shipping for both the outer and the inner circuit. And advanced though he now is in years, yet the fire of youth still smoulders within the old tar. Still, he assumes the helm on special or great occasions, and this was one of these, in consideration of some of the company, I rather flattered myself that my being of the party had its weight to stimulate the redoubted old navigator into action, to say nothing of any additional weight in friend Brown. I had a good joke with both about keeping the matter quiet to my wife.
Brown was not a bird so easily caught. He was much more of a stay-at-home than either White or myself. I had to make a solid bargain with the chary old chap, and here was the way I got over him. Besides the prospect of some profitable jobbing in solar wares, a book of our solar adventures was to be written, and Brown was to have full half profits.
