some small, variously colored, and all covered with the same sort of
fur, quite unlike any hair I have ever seen."

"In the air?" I echoed, recovering from my astonishment. Then I laughed
mightily. "Man, ye must be crazy! There is no animal can live in the
air! Ye must mean in the water or on land."

"Nay," interposed the star-gazer. "Thou hast never studied the stars,
Strokor, or thou wouldst know that there be a number of them which,
through the enlarging tube, show themselves to be round worlds, like
unto our own.

"And it doth further appear that these other worlds also have air like
this we breathe, and that some have less, while others have even more.
From what Edam has told me," finished the old man, "I judge that his
vision took place on Jeos, [Footnote: The Mercurian word for earth.] a
world much larger than ours according to my calculations, and doubtless
having enough air to permit very light creatures to move about in it."

"Go on," said I to Edam, good-humoredly. "I be ever willing to believe
anything strange when my stomach is full."

The dreamer had taken no offense. "Then I bent my gaze closer, as I am
always able, in visions. And I saw that the greenery was most remarkably
dense, tangled and luxuriant to a degree not ever seen here. And moving
about in it was the most extraordinary collection of beings that I have
ever laid these eyes upon.

"There were some huge creatures, quite as tall as thy house, Strokor,
with legs as big around as that huge chest of thine. They had tails, as