She put it down again very carefully as though she were afraid it would go floating off the table, and said, looking rather scared: "That's very strange, but I suppose it's all perfectly natural ?" "Perfectly; it merely means that we have left Mother Earth a good long way behind us." "How far ?" she asked.
"I can't tell you exactly," he replied, "until I go to the instrument-room and take the angles, but I should say roughly about seventy thousand miles.

When we've finished we'll go and have coffee on the upper deck, and then we shall see something of the glories of Space as no human eyes have ever seen them before." "Seventy thousand miles away from home already, and we only started a couple of hours ago!" Zaidie found the idea a trifle terrifying, and finished her meal almost in silence.

When she got up she was not a little disconcerted when the effort she made not only took her off her chair but off her feet as well.

She rose into the air nearly to the surface of the table.
"Sakes!" she said, "this is getting quite a little embarrassing; I shall be hitting my head against the roof next." "Oh, you'll soon get used to it," he laughed, pulling her down on to her feet by the skirt of her dress; "always remember to exert very little strength in everything you do, and don't forget to do everything very slowly." When the coffee was made he carried the apparatus up into the deck-chamber.

Then he came back and said: "You'd better wrap yourself up warmly.