The Undersea Tube

s only a matter of time?"

"Yes, and I have been informed by one expert that the old volcanic activity is not dead either."

"So that is what has stolen away your laugh?"

"Well I am one of the engineers--and they won't suspend the service."

"Fate has played an ugly trick on you, Dutch, and through your own dreams too. However, you have made me decide to go by the Tube."

He took his pipe out of his mouth and stared at me.

"Sooner or later the Tube will be through, and I have never been across. Nothing risked--a dull life. Mine has been altogether too dull. I am now most certainly going by the Tube."

A bit of the old fire lit up his eyes.

"Same old Bob," he grunted as I rose, and then he grasped my hand with a grin.

"Good luck, my boy, on your journey, and may old Vulcan be out on a vacation when you pass his door."

Thus we said good-by. I did not know then that I would never see him again--that he also took the train that night in order to mak