Lilla, who had borne him a son to occupy the throne of Cupia.

While at my farm Cabot had rigged up a huge radio set and a matter-transmitting apparatus, with which he had (presumably) shot himself back to Poros on the night of the big October storm which had wrecked his installation.

I showed the newspaper item to Mrs. Farley, and lamented on Cabot’s absence. Her response opened up an entirely new line of thought.

Said she: “Doesn’t the very fact that Mr. Cabot isn’t here suggest to you that this may be a message, not from Mars, but from him? Or perhaps from the Princess Lilla, inquiring about him in case he has failed in his attempted return?”

That had never occurred to me! How stupid!

“What had I better do about it, if anything?” I asked. “Drop Professor Hammond a line?”

But Mrs. Farley was afraid that I would be taken for a crank.

That evening, when I was over in town, the clerk in the drug store waylaid me to say that there had been a long-distance phone call for me, and would I please call a certain Cambridge number.

So, after waiting an interminable time in the stuffy booth with my hands full of dimes, nickels, and quarters, I finally got my party.

“Mr. Farley?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Professor Kellogg, O. D. Kellogg,” the voice replied.

It was my friend of the Harvard math faculty, the man who had analyzed the measurements of the streamline projectile in which Myles Cabot had shot to earth the account of the first part of his adventures on Venus. Some further adventures Myles had told me in person during his stay on my farm.

“Professor Hammond thinks that he is getting Mars on the air,” the voice continued.

“Yes,” I replied. “I judged as much from what I read in this morning’s paper. But what do you think?”

Kellogg’s reply gave my sluggish mind the second jolt which it had received that day.

“Well,” he said, “in view of the fact that I am one of the few people among your readers who take your radio stories seriously, I think that Hammond is getting Venus. Can you run up here and help me try and convince him?”

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