He was
irritated because he did not feel splendid emotions after making a
resolution and a plan which ought to go down in history--if it worked.
He wasn't uplifted. He wasn't aware of any particular feeling of being
the instrument of destiny or anything else. He simply felt peevish and
annoyed and obstinate about trying the impossible trick.
It annoyed him additionally, perhaps, to see the expression of
starry-eyed admiration on Babs' face as she looked at him across the
untidy laboratory table, cluttered up with beer-cans.
CHAPTER THREE
It is a matter of record that the American continents were discovered
because ice-boxes were unknown in the fifteenth century. There being no
refrigeration, meat did not keep. But meat was not too easy to come by,
so it had to be eaten, even when it stank. Therefore it was a noble
enterprise, and to the glory of the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, to
put up the financial backing for even a crackpot who might get spices
cheaper and thereby make the consumption of slightly spoiled meat less
unpleasant. Which was why Columbus got three ships and crews of
jailbirds for them from a government still busy trying to drive the
Moors out of the last corner of Spain.
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