"We know by our computations that our speed is much less than it once was,
and our theory is that this has in some way hushed those terrible storms
and winds which we know were formerly so frequent."

Here the doctor thought he saw a chance to make a point, and spoke as
follows:

"If the meteorites come in quantities sufficient to have caused such
changes, it seems to me their fall must be as great a menace to your peace
as the evils they have cured. They do not strike the earth in large
numbers, but still we have a record of a shower of meteoric stones which
devastated a whole village. I suppose all parts of your globe are by this
time well populated, and how can you be entirely free from trouble when
you are living in constant danger of the downfall of these great masses of
rock?"

"But we don't have meteorites now," replied Thorwald.

"Oh, you don't?"

"No, they ceased falling long ago. Mars is going slow enough for the
present."

"Very kind of them, I am sure, to stop when you didn't need them any
longer," said the doctor; "and I suppose you have some plausible reason to
give for their disappearance."

"Yes, we believe that the interplanetary space was well filled with these
small bodies, circling around the sun, and when their multitudinous and
eccentric orbits intercepted the orbits of the planets, they came within