Now the Servers were one of a group of small nations, heretofore referred to as the Bally-Khan States, and they had a powerful friend and protector in the politically far more important nation of the RUSH-NOTS. The Rush-Nots were named for the slowness of their national progress. For many centuries there had been among the Nazarrano nations a pronounced prejudice against the Heebrons, notwithstanding the fact that NAZARRO Himself had been a Heebron and had followed the Heebron faith. Heebrons were unscrupulously persecuted, robbed, tortured, murdered, their possessions frequently confiscated, and they were permitted to dwell only in special sections set aside for them. These criminal proceedings had long ago been abolished in all the other Nazarrano countries, but the Rush-Nots continued to indulge in these sordid amusements of the long-forgotten past. In all other Nazarrano countries, moreover, the power of the ruler had been limited by giving his subjects a share in determining the laws that govern them. Among the Rush-Nots the ruler still had absolute power over his subjects as the rulers in other countries had had in the long-forgotten past. So you can easily understand that in matters of progress and social improvement they rushed not. Nevertheless, by means of bloodshed, the Rush-Nots had acquired a goodly proportion of the crust of Mars. So the Rush-Nots, being friends of the Bally-Khan nations to which group the Servers belonged, parleyed with the Austrich-ans and told them to treat the Servers more politely, and threatened that otherwise they would be compelled to direct their engines of destruction very impolitely against the Austrich-ans. We have stated before that Brittia was desirous of permanent peace. So, indeed, were the Rush-Nots, because they, too, had obtained more than their due proportion of Martian territory. So, too, were the previously mentioned Frank-Aulians or Fringe, who in fact had entered into an intimate bond of friendship with the Rush-Nots. The Brits therefore, to all appearances, did their best by means of dip-low-macy to avoid the threatening war. But the Austrich-ans hurriedly commenced to make war preparations; and when the Rush-Nots saw this, they followed suit. Whether or not the Austrich-ans had acted all this time with the secret approval of the great WILMOSTASH, or the Two-Ton explosive-manufacturers, may forever be a question fit for debate. Yet so much is certain that, at this momentous stage of the international quarrel, WILMOSTASH peremptorily told the Rush-Nots to turn their destructive apparatus back from the Austrich-an borders, so that Austricha might do to the Servers whatever served the Austrich-an-Two-Tonian interests best. The Rush-Nots told the mighty WILMOSTASH to go to Halifax, a sort of meeting-place where it is always hot to suffocation.