Bob kept along until turning onto a dirt road he rode toward the bayou.
There Socrates stood in the middle of the scrap yard; newfangled engines and improvised mechanical parts automated with electrodes and coiling copper wire. Electrical sparks were popping and sizzling. The thing before him headed toward the sky in a blast of steam rolling over high in the air and plunging like a missile back to earth landing point down in the dirt.
“What have we here, professor?” said the cat.
“A steam rocket,” said Socrates. “We’ll never get to the moon this way.”
“There are a thousand ways to get to the moon, my good man. I just want to get to Atlanta.”
“Atlanta?” said Socrates surprised. “Haven’t you heard? Sherman raised Atlanta. It came over the wire the whole city went down in flames.”
Bob became vexed. “Atlantis, Troy, Pompeii, *****, Jerusalem, Constantinople, Rome, and now Atlanta. What’s become of the higher races?”
Socrates went to his fallen projectile smoking in the dust.
“There were never any such races and you know it, Roberto. That’s all a myth.”
“A myth started by the higher races! There, you can’t outwit my logic.”
“What is logic to a cat,” sniped Socrates.