“It’s an invitation to a banquet, or something,” Gus said.
“Sure. I wonder if he’s going to accept.” This from Bill.
“When did he come back? I thought he sailed away last fall.”
“Been back a week; read it in the paper. He’s on his boat again, the El—listen! He’s talking.”
“Marconi speaking. Gentlemen of the Society of Electrical Research, I shall accept with much pleasure, but please do not put me down for an extended speech. Only a few remarks—probably on my subject. But I shall make no reference to Mars; my interest in that is almost nil. That is a newspaper romance, and I am really getting very tired of being misunderstood. I would be very glad if, in the course of the evening, someone would jestingly refer to this and absolve me from holding such untenable ideas. I thank you. I shall be there.”
“Gee-whiz, Gus, I wonder if the time will ever come when we’ll get invitations like that, eh? And say, he doesn’t take any stock in that message-from-Mars foolishness.”
“Well, I guess it’s silly, all right,” Gus agreed.
“Why, sure. They can’t even tell if Mars has any life on it, and if it has, it is mighty unlikely that any kind of creatures have developed brains enough to understand radio. Shucks! No real scientist will waste his time on any guesswork like that. We want to know more through the telescope first.”
“But maybe the telescope can’t tell us—then what? We want to get at it anyway we can, don’t we?”
“Oh, I suppose, in any sensible, possible, likely way, but not on such a supposition. It would be like shooting at the moon: if a high-powered gun could get its projectile beyond our attraction of gravitation and if it were aimed right, why, then the shot might hit the mark. Too blamed many ‘ifs.’ And some of the greatest astronomers say Mars isn’t inhab—what’s this?”