This time, as he tore up the correspondence, Doggo signified an affirmative. And thus there resulted further correspondence.

“Doggo,” Myles wrote, “can you get to the antenna of the queen?”

The ant-man indicated that he could.

“If she has inherited any of your character,” Myles continued, “she will assert herself, if given half a chance.”

So the Pitmanesque conversation continued. Long since had the pink light of Porovian evening faded from the western sky. The ceiling vapor-lamps were lit. The night showed velvet-black through the slit-like windows. And still the two old friends wrote on, Myles Standish Cabot, the Bostonian, and Doggo, No. 334-2-18, the only really humanlike ant-man whom Myles had ever known among the once dominant race of Poros.

Finally, as the dials indicated midnight, the two conspirators ceased their labors. All was arranged for the coup d’ etat.

They tore into shreds every scrap of used paper, leaving extant merely the ant-man’s concluding words: “Meanwhile you are my prisoner.”

Doggo then rang a soundless bell, which was answered by a worker ant, whom he inaudibly directed to bring sufficient draperies to form a bed for the earth-man. These brought, the two friends patted each other a fond good night, and the tired earth-man lay down for the first sleep which he had had in over forty earth hours.

It hardly seemed possible! Night before last he had slept peacefully on a conventional feather-bed in a little New England farmhouse. Then had come the S O S message from the skies; and here he was now, millions of miles away through space retiring on matted silver felting on the concrete floor of a Porovian ant-house. Such are the mutations of fortune!

With these thoughts the returned wanderer lapsed into a deep and dreamless sleep.

When he awakened in the morning there was a guard posted at the door.

Doggo did not show up until nearly noon, when he rattled in, bristling with excitement.

Seizing the pad he wrote: “A stormy session of the Council of Twelve! We are all agreed that you must be indicted for high crimes and misdemeanors. But the great question is as to just what we can charge you with.”

“Sorry I can’t assist you,” the earth-man wrote. “How 

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