For one thing, he had become a great collector of curios of all kinds, animate and inanimate. That is to say, he had got together the finest collection of curios and zoological and botanical specimens of any upon the planet. Some of these had been contributed by Ivanta—brought by him from distant planets, Earth and Saturn—who possibly thought it good policy to encourage his restless vassal in so blameless a hobby. Thus the gardens surrounding the palace formed a sort of glorified Zoo and Kew Gardens rolled into one. His palace, too, was filled to overflowing with the most remarkable works of art that money could buy and the countries of his globe could produce. The fame of his collections had spread throughout the world of Mars, and people travelled immense distances and made long pilgrimages to see them. It is scarcely a matter for surprise that such a man should now be bitten with a craze for diamonds, with a burning, overmastering desire—which later on became a determination—to become the possessor of the finest collection of jewels upon his planet. Now, it so happened that while Agrando’s desires in this direction had been growing and growing until they had almost reached the length of becoming a sort of madness, Ivanta’s thoughts had been working in an exactly opposite direction. By degrees he had come to wish he had never troubled himself about precious stones at all. Certainly, what he had done had been planned with the best intentions; but his sagacious instinct now began to lean to the idea that for once in his life he had made a great mistake. Therefore, he was casting about for some plausible excuse for undoing what he had travelled all the way to Earth specially to accomplish. Already, during the voyage home to Mars, he had noted many incidents which his keen insight into human nature had told him were the little seeds likely to grow into a big crop of future trouble. He had seen, with sorrow and alarm, that even his most trusted councillors and dearest friends were beginning to give their chief thought and attention to ’dividing up’ the cargo of diamonds they were carrying back. Already envy, covetousness, and greed were raising their ugly heads where before all had been amiability and goodwill. And if this were so even before the distribution took place, what was likely to be the state of things afterwards? This alteration in his views had been greatly strengthened by his conversations with Armeath. That honest sage, also deeply experienced in human nature, fearlessly expressed his own opinions on the subject. He gave Ivanta endless illustrations and ’modern instances’ of the crimes and misery which a covetous greed for precious stones might be expected to introduce into his world.