from under the wagon, where he had crawled for safety, and when I
replied as nicely as I could, "No, thank you, not to-day," he said
again, quite sadly as I thought, "Gosh blim me, if that don't beat the
cats!" and also several other things I could not hear because we were
moving away so rapidly.

When we had gone about a hundred miles--or yards, or inches, whichever
it was--the Astorian, who had been sitting very straight, inquired if
those gentlemen--meaning Pop and Jay--were near relatives.

I showed him plainly that I thought his question Uranian, and explained
that I had not a relative on Earth. Then I told him exactly how I had
come to be with them, and about my picnic and the egg. I am afraid I did
not take great pains to make the story very clear, for it was such fun
to perplex him. He is not at all like the Venus people, who have become
so superlatively clever that they are always bored to death.

"Were you surprised to see me flying through the air?" I asked.

"Oh, no," he said; "I have always thought of you as coming to Earth in
some such way from some far-distant planet."

"Oh, then, you know!" I gasped.

The Astorian laughed.

"I know you are the one perfect being in the world, and that is quite
enough," he said, and I saw at once that whatever he had guessed about
me he knew nothing at all of the Settlement.