eliest of God's creatures whom we have known in the flesh? Is
it impossible for an archangel to smile? Is such a phenomenon as a laugh
never heard except in our little sinful corner of the universe? Do you
suppose, that when the disciples heard from the lips of their Master the
play of words on the name of Peter, there was no smile of appreciation
on the bearded faces of those holy men? From any other lips we should
have called this pleasantry a--

Number Five shook her head very slightly, and gave me a look that seemed
to say, "Don't frighten the other Teacups. We don't call things by the
names that belong to them when we deal with celestial subjects."

We tied up, as my attendant playfully called our resting, so near
the planet that I could know--I will not say see and hear, but
apprehend--all that was going on in that remote sphere; remote, as
we who live in what we have been used to consider the centre of the
rational universe regard it. What struck me at once was the deadness of
everything I looked upon. Dead, uniform color of surface and surrounding
atmosphere. Dead complexion of all the inhabitants. Dead-looking trees,
dead-looking grass, no flowers to be seen anywhere.

"What is the meaning of all this?" I said to my guide.

She smiled good-naturedly, and replied, "It is a forlorn home for
anything above a lichen or a toadstool; but that is no wonder, when you
know what the air is which they breathe. It is pure nitrogen."

The Professor spoke up. "That can't be, madam," he said. "The
spectroscope shows the atmosphere of Saturn to be--no matter, I have
forgotten what; but it was not pure nitrogen, at any rate."

Number Five is never disconcerted. "Will you tell me," she said, "where
you have found any account of the bands and lines in the spectrum of
dream-nitrogen? I should be so pleased to become acquainted with them."

The Professor winced a little, and asked Delilah, the handmaiden, to
pass a plate of muffins to him. The dream had carried him away, and he
thought for the moment that he was listening to a scientific paper.

Of course, my companion went on to say, the bodily constitution of
the Saturnians is wholly different from that of air-breathing, that
is oxygen-breathing, human beings. They are the dullest, slowest, most
torpid of mortal creatures.

All this is not to be wondered at when you remember the inert
characteristics of nitrogen. There are in some localities natural
springs which give ou