_ "TO-NIGHT NEARLY ALL THE LADIES ARE ENGLISH, COUNT, AND
THE GENTLEMEN ARE MOSTLY FOREIGN, AS IT HAPPENS!"]
* * * * *
READING THE STARS A LA MODE.
(_EXTRACT FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF THE SECRETARY OF THE EARTH AND MARS
INTERCOMMUNICATION COMPANY, LIMITED._)
_August_ 10, 1899.--Open this book just to jot down briefly the
results of our efforts to hold a conversation with the people living
in the adjacent planet. Get a better notion by this means of what
we are doing than the minutes can afford. Shall leave this book as
an heirloom to my successors in office. In 1892, when we were last
nearest Mars (only at a distance of 35,000,000 miles or thereabouts),
we came to the conclusion that the Marsians were trying to speak to
us. They seemed to be making signals. With the assistance of our new
telescope (six times as powerful as that of seven years ago), we made
out what we took to be at first an old man waving a white hat. On more
careful inspection, found that the old man was a volcano in a state of
eruption.
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