To be dull of wit is sadly unfortunate, but to be dull of wit and be compelled to live in a Colony made up of more or less reckless young men is doubly unfortunate.
In the group eccentricities are quickly discouraged. The grouch, the crank, the bully, if he would remain and live in harmony must learn his lesson in democracy—the individualist is given short shift.
Of course the dull of wit should be given immunity at all times, and in theory he is, but in real practice even the most gentle hearted man will have his little joke at the expense of the man less alert mentally. The members of the Colony are no exception to this rule.
“Tell us more,” the boys asked of the Moon-Struck-One, one evening after the day’s work was done, “about the inhabitants of Mars, which you see in your trances.”
And then he—the Moon-Struck-One—would explain in detail the strange people he had seen in his dreams.
“These planets,” he told them, “are all being made ready for the coming race of Man.... After Cycles and Cycles, we move on to newer and better worlds.... Each of the mystic Seven Planets are at the service of the human race. Time and time again a new world has borne the burden of the evolving man’s hope and his despair.... The cosmic scheme is worthy of the Wondrous God, who holds not only the Seven Planets in control, but rules the Seven Universes with their Seven Suns—you laugh, most men laugh, the churchmen laugh, they do not know, they have not seen—but I know and have seen.”
“How interesting,” said one boy, winking slyly to his fellows. “I know something of astronomy myself; my brother was a Princeton graduate.”
It was a summer’s evening when this conversation took place and the boys were sitting out on the lawn enjoying the night air, for the day had been hot and oppressive.