"Then listen attentively, Your Highness," said Olinski, "and you'll get an earful." Motioning to Henry, he added: "Let's have it."
"Yes," said Henry, in a deeply serious voice, "we have completely proved that life not only exists on Mars, but that in some respects civilization there is more advanced, especially in the sciences, than on earth."
"Life as we know it here on this sphere?" Jane inquired. "How extraordinary."
Henry nodded, and said: "It is information on our discovery, which has leaked out in some mysterious way, that this reporter, McGinity, apparently, is seeking. But we are not yet ready to divulge our secret findings until we have arranged to give a public demonstration."
"Oh, how thrilling!" Pat ejaculated. "And when will that be?"
"Probably within a week," Henry replied.
The Prince whistled. "Well, somebody's going dotty," he said. "That's all I've got to say. It's too utterly absurd—impossible."
"But it is possible," Henry said. "Radio has made it technically possible. Radio has successfully bridged the hitherto impassable sidereal abyss between earth and Mars—annihilated space."
"I'm not an authority on radio," the Prince grumbled.
"Every American schoolboy knows with what tremendous velocity radio spins round the earth, seven and one-half times in one second," Henry went on. "Now, we know it jumps from planet to planet. Its echo actually has come back to us from outside the orbit of the moon."