A vague and terrifying science, astronomy! Only as a subdued though highly decorative lighting effect can I regard the stellar pageant with equanimity. To be sure I have learned to locate the Dipper and Orion and Cassiopeia’s Chair and a few other popular favorites, but this painful knowledge was acquired solely for its conversational value on summer evenings at week-end, house or yachting parties. Beyond that, all I know about the science of astronomy could be as accurately demonstrated with the perforations of a colander, held up to the light, as on the most perfect star map in the Encyclopedia Britannica. If the truth must be told, I much prefer Asterisks. * * * * * With a moon and a mariner’s compass and a good road map or chart, the traveler by land or sea can get along very well without the stars, but in the trackless mazes of literature and art, how would the wandering Philistine fare without Asterisks? An anthology or guide of any kind without Asterisks would be as unthinkable as a Dalmatian dog without spots or a red-headed boy without freckles. Imagine yourself in the city of Berlin with a de-stellated Baedeker. You would make Moses-when-the-light-went-out look like a torchlight procession! Not that I cite Herr Karl Baedeker as the model of stellar perfection. Too many stars may prove as demoralizing as too many cooks. Even that guide, topographer and friend of the tourist is at times bewildering, if not misleading. On page 133 of Baedeker’s Berlin, “_Furniture From the Boudoir of Queen Marie Antoinette_” has two stars, ** while “_Elijah in the Desert_,” on page 108, has, in addition to all his other troubles, to worry along with one star. And that is not the worst of it. On page 163, “_a well-preserved Archæopteryx in Solnhofen slate_,” to me by all odds the most interesting object in Berlin, has no star at all! * * * But no matter how annoying it is, you must never blame the Asterisks. They only did as they were told and stood where Herr Baedeker placed them and, if they did wrong, Herr Baedeker alone was responsible. A good writer—or editor—is good to his Asterisks, and when he puts them in a false position we must make due allowance. If Asterisks could combine and form a protective union, there might be some hope for them, but a flair for collective bargaining is not in their nature. That being the case, I suggest the establishment of a Federal Licensing Bureau empowered to investigate the qualifications of would-be employers of Asterisks and issue or withhold licenses accordingly. And it is high time something were done about it. Only lately there has been brought to my notice a case of so flagrant a nature that, were there such an institution as a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Asterisks, I should feel it my duty to call their attention to it.