much interest your first introduction to a daughter of Mars."

"You will be disappointed," said I, "if you think I shall be more than
civil to her."

"If she be handsome and can turn a tune moderately well, I shall be
willing to wager a fair young planet against the moon that you will
propose to her in a week."

"I have done nothing to give you so poor an opinion of me. It is only your
own diseased imagination, and I do not seem to be curing it very fast. I
suppose, because your mind is naturally so strong, it is the more
difficult to destroy such an hallucination as has taken possession of
you."

"I would give it up," said the doctor. "The story is all true, and not a
work of my imagination. Isn't it more reasonable to believe that you could
forget the circumstances I have related than that I could invent such a
tale?"

"Oh, I never could forget it if I had been false to Margaret. You do not
know me. If your vagaries had taken any other direction I might possibly
be brought to think you were right."

By this time we both began to realize that the conversation was not
proving a great success in the way we had hoped, and so, after some
pleasant words and a hearty laugh over the situation, we found our way to
the deck again. Here there were various things to attract our attention,
different members of the crew being eager to show us about. The doctor
asked some question in regard to the system of steering the vessel, and