*

Pride goeth ever before a fall: it took me sixteen shots to demolish the
eleven ships which had escaped destruction from the ray. As the last one
fell in ruins, Jim ordered the ray shut off. We fell toward the ground.

"What are we going to do with our prisoner?" I asked.

Jim looked at the beetle meditatively.

"He would make a fine museum piece if he were stuffed," he said, "but
on the whole, I think we'll let him go. He is an intelligent creature
and will probably be happier on Mercury than anywhere else. What do you
say that we put him on his ship and turn him loose?"

"To lead another invasion?" I asked.

"I think not. He has seen what has happened to this one and is more
likely to warn them to keep away. In any event, if we equip the guard
ships with a ray that will show the Mercurian ships up and keep the
disintegrating ray ready for action, we needn't fear another invasion.
Let's let him go."

"It suits me all right, Jim, but I hold out for one thing. I will never
dare to face McQuarrie again if I fail to get a picture of him. I insist
on taking his photograph before we turn him loose."

"All right, go ahead," laughed Jim. "He ought to be able to stand that,
if you'll spare him an interview."

An hour later we watched the Mercurian flyer disappear into space.

"I hope I've seen the last of those bugs," I said as the flyer faded
from view.

"I don't know," said Jim thoughtfully. "If I have interpreted correctly
the drawings that creature made, there is a race of manlike bipeds on
Mercury who are slaves to those beetles and who live and die in the
horrible atmosphere of a radium mine. Some of these days I may lead an
expedition to our sister planet and look into that matter."

MECHANICAL VOICES FOR PHONE NUMBERS

New developments whereby science goes still farther in its
assumption of human attributes were described and demonstrated
recently by Sergius P. Grace, Assistant Vice-President of Bell
Telephone Laboratories, where the developments were conceived and
worked out.

One development described, and soon to be put into service in New
York, transforms a telephone number dialed by a subscriber into
speech. Although the subscriber says not a word the number dialed
is spoken aloud to the operator.

The device is expected to simplify and speed the hooking together
of automatic and voice-hand-operated telephone exchanges, and a