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"Idiot," snapped Bramante

"Hoill you choose? Who will go? If you go, your ill hate you, for you will be just a bit nearer God, in space When you tell your anaw at her?"

"No, no!"

"Yes! And your children? Will their lives be filled with the memory of Papa, who flew to Mars while they stayed here? What a senseless task you will set your boys They will think of the rocket all their lives They will lie awake They will be sick anting it Just as you are sick now They ant to die if they cannot go Don't set that goal, I warn you Let the poor Turn their eyes down to their hands and to your junk yard, not up to the stars"

"But--"

"Suppose your ent? Hoould you feel, knowing she hadseen and you had not? She would beco her in the river No, Bodoni, buy a nerecking machine, which you need, and pull your dreams apart with it, and smash them to pieces"

The old es of rockets burned down the sky

"Good night," said Bodoni

"Sleep well," said the other

When the toast juht had been sleepless A his nervous children, beside hisBraht Better to invest the money Why save it when only one of the family could ride the rocket, while the others remained to melt in frustration?

"Fiorello, eat your toast," said his wife, Maria

"My throat is shriveled," said Bodoni

The children rushed in, the three boys fighting over a toy rocket, the two girls carrying dolls which duplicated the inhabitants of Mars, Venus, and Neptune, green ers

"I saw the Venus rocket!" cried Paolo

"It took off,whoosh!" hissed Antonello