"You'd better explain that, father," said Beth, when we reached this point in our summary that evening.
"Heat is the vibration of molecules of matter," the professor began.
I nodded.
"Make it clear when you write it up, Bob," Alan put in. "It's like this. All molecules are in motion—the faster the motion, the hotter the substance, and vice versa."
"And this Mercutian Light," Beth added, "has the power of enormously increasing the molecular vibration of anything it comes in contact with—"
"But it doesn't radiate much heat itself," Alan finished.
Professor Newland smiled. "The old man doesn't have much of a show, does he?"
Alan sat down somewhat abashed, but Beth remained standing beside her father, listening intently to everything he said.
"This light I conceive to be the chief weapon of warfare of the Mercutians," the professor went on. "There has been some talk of those two meteors being signals. That's all nonsense. They were not signals—they were missiles. It was an act of aggression."
I tried to get him to give some idea of what the inhabitants of Mercury might be like, for that was what my editor chiefly desired.