[Illustration: Punch Among the Planets]

"Happy to meet you once more, _Mr. Punch_," responded old Edax Rerum,
turning from what the poet calls his 'Optic Tube' to welcome his
sprightly visitor. "Awfully good of you to turn up just now. Like
True THOMAS's _Teufelsdröckh_, 'I am alone with the Stars,' and was
beginning to feel just a little bit lonely."

"With the Voces Stellarum to keep you company? You surprise me,"
said _Mr. Punch_. "But what is all this?" he added, pointing with
accustomed eye to a pile of MS. at TIME's elbow.

If so old a stager as Father TIME _can_ blush, he certainly did so on
this occasion.

"Fact is, _Mr. Punch_," he rejoined, "I, like younger and shall I
say lesser Celebrities, have been writing my 'Reminiscences.' Ha ha!
_The Chronicles of Chronos_ in 6,000 volumes or so--up to now. This
is a small portion of my _Magnum Opus_. Can you recommend me to a
publisher?"

"Ask my friend Archdeacon FARRAR," responded the Sage, drily. "What
a work! And what a sensation! TALLEYRAND's long-talked-of 'Memoirs'
not in it! Do you know, my dear TIME, I think you had better postpone
the publication--for an æon or so at least. _Your Magnum Opus_ might
become a _Scandalum Magnatum_."

"Ah, perhaps so," replied TIME, with a sigh.