"Suppose we draw a line of zet," the box added, when the derision had died out, "imprison groups of those countless numbers and then wipe them out by detachments? How would that work?"
"The atmosphere of Earth is different from that of Mercury," continued the professor. "You cannot draw zet from the air of our planet."
"Thanks for the hint," replied the king. "We will take an ample supply with us and charge the atmosphere with it. Then we shall have a store at hand whenever the need develops."
While the king was using his word-box with two of his hands, he was rubbing the other two together with ill-concealed delight.
"Conditions there are absolutely unknown to you, your majesty," persisted the professor in a frantic endeavor to turn the king from his designs. "You will be brought face to face, at every turn, with situations that will puzzle you and be fraught with danger. All the nations of the Earth will combine against you."
"Let them combine!" was the monarch's answer. "I hope they will display sufficient strength to make the campaign exciting. I will capture this Earth of yours and rule over it! From one end of it to the other I will make it mine! I have long felt that Njambai was too small for the proper exercise of my wide abilities."
"This is your world," the professor thumped angrily on his word-box, "and you have no right to meddle with any other planet."
That caused the king to turn his keen eye on the professor, and to keep it there for a full minute.
"I have the right to do whatever I see fit," snapped his talk machine. "There is no will in this kingdom but mine, and no other will in the four kingdoms, if I choose to have it so. But why are you saying such things on your word-box? After firing me with a kingly ambition to capture and annex a distant planet, why do you proceed to throw discouragement in my way? Ha! I wonder if you have been telling me the truth?"
"Your majesty," hummed the professor's talk machine, with dignity, "I am not in the habit of making misstatements."