“Going strong; but sometimes I am inclined to chuck the whole lot of ’em up; they’re such little plagues. Yet one can’t help feeling a bit proud of the inhabited ones.”
“Ah! you’ve warmed some of them into life since I was last round?”
“Oh, yes. A few have quite interesting little things living on them. Mars, for instance; they are getting fairly advanced there. Saturn has put on frills since you were here. He found a big swarm of asteroids which had lost their way, and now wears them like a collar. Saturn’s a regular child of Nature.”
“How’s Venus? Lovely as ever?”
“Lovely enough, but more bother than all the rest of ’em put together. She’ll get into trouble some of these days—there are half-a-dozen Comets after her as it is—no self-respect, you see; so different from Jupiter.”
“He was always your favourite.”
“No, no, I have no favourites, unless my own little Mercury may so be called. But Jupiter has such a distinguished way with him. No folly, no giddiness. Always the same. A thousand pities he’s got such a wretched climate. I’m doing what I can, but I haven’t yet been able to get anything to live on Jupiter but frogs, and a few of the lower reptiles.”
“How’s the Earth?”
“Don’t ask me—the black sheep of the System! The ingratitude of that planet! They’ve got a little dead cinder that circles round them, according to the laws of gravitation; and, would you believe it? they think twice as much of that cinder as they do of me! A fact. They call it the Moon and write poetry to it. The Earth people have, in fact, reached a trying stage. They are growing out of childhood, but still lie far removed from the solidity and reasoning powers proper to an adult. They are funny, too. Here’s a bit of New Humour to take away with you. What d’you think they believed till the last few years?”
“Sure I don’t know,” said the Comet.