_Mars._ Much obliged to Mr. MAUNDER, I'm sure! Wants to take my photo, doesn't he? As if I were a mere politician, a popular comedian, or 'ARRIET at the seaside on a Bank Holiday! _Mr. Punch._ Have you any Bank Holidays in your planet? _Mars._ Thank Sol, _Mr. Punch_, we have outlived the epoch of taking our pleasure in spasms, like your cockney victims of the vulgar voluptuary's St. Vitus's dance! _Mr. Punch._ Don't be uppish, old man! 'Tis an ill-bred age of Kodaks, and Interviews, and other phases of popular Paul Pryism. But you've had your ignominious moments, Mars. If a "snap-shot" could have been taken at you when held prostrate, chained, and captive, at the feet of Otus and Ephialtes, or, still worse, when caught with Venus in the iron net of Vulcan:-- All heaven beholds, imprison'd as they lie, And unextinguish'd laughter shakes the sky. _Mars._ Spare me, excellent _Punch_. Eugh! Thank heaven Olympus knew no Kodaks then, or "the gay Apollo" would yet longer have had the laugh of me. _Mr. Punch._ Pardon me for awaking unpleasant memories! But even gods should not be bumptious, especially when, like the _Second Mrs. Tanqueray_, they "have a past." _Mars._ Well, anyhow I've been able to baffle the camera-wielders up to now. My ruddy countenance and "bluish radiance" have beaten Greenwich, and even licked the Lick! As they themselves admit, "Mars up to the present has defied cameral detection." _Mr. Punch._ But what about those "bright spots"? _Mars._ Have you no "bright spots" even on your dull and foggy old planet? I have often noticed one at 85, Fleet Street. In June and December it emits thousands of brilliant sparks of a "bluish radiance," too. But I don't jump to the conclusion that you are "signalling" to me. Look, the naked eye can see the Punchian "_projection lumineuse_" even from here! _Mr. Punch._ I do not have to "signal" my messages to "Hellas" or "LOCKYER'S Land" by canals or "ten million arc lights of 100,000 candle-power apiece." Like the Sun, I am self-luminous, and do not, like the finest planets, shine by reflected light. _Mars._ True for you. And from your own intellectual observatory, like TEUFELSDROECKH "alone with the stars," you ofttimes scan the heavens when, as LONGFELLOW says:-- "----the first watch of night is given To the red planet Mars." _Mr. Punch._ Precisely! [_Murmurs musingly._ And earnest thoughts within me rise When I behold afar, Suspended in the evening skies The shield of that red star. A star of strength! I see thee stand And smile upon my pain; Thou beckonest with thy mailéd hand, And I am strong again. The star of the unconquered will He rises in my breast. Serene, and resolute and still, And calm, and self-possessed.