"And I will carry thee above the world, To share my ecstasy of flinging beams, And scattering without intermission joy. And thou shall know the first leap of the sea Toward me; the grateful upward look of earth, Emerging roseate from her bath of dew-- We two in heaven dancing. Babylon Shall flash and murmur, and cry from under us. And Nineveh catch fire, and at our feet Be hurled with her inhabitants, and all Adoring Asia kindle and hugely bloom-- We two in heaven running--continents Shall lighten, ocean unto ocean flash, And rapidly laugh till all this world is warm." Bennie listened, as Rhoda spoke the lines, spellbound at the poet's imagination. "By golly," he cried, in admiration, "that's more wonderful than--than actually _doing it_!" III Bentham T. Tassifer had paused, as usual, at the Metropolitan Club, on his way home from the Department of Justice, and, as a natural consequence, was exuding his regular post-meridian benignity. In his own little official occupation of the day--the joker in the contract for the new post-office at Pocalla, Texas--he had entirely forgotten the disappearance of his niece, as well as the anticipated collision between the wandering asteroid and the earth which he so honored by living upon it. He had followed his ordinary custom of going directly to the bar and consuming a sherry and bitters with an audible, guzzling satisfaction, something between the gurgles of a dying bathtub and the intake of a hippopotamus. Then his lordly little eye fell upon the lank form of his golfing friend Judson, of the Department of Agriculture, leaning in contemplation before a tumbler from which o'erlapped a sprig of mint. "'Lo!" he remarked, with an intonation signifying 'Behold, minion; King John, your king and England's, doth approach!' "'Lo yuhself!" returned Judson. "Djuh see somethin' happened to that comet?" "Eh?" demanded the solicitor. "Comet? You mean the asteroid, I suppose? What's happened to it?" Judson took a sip from the tumbler and turned savagely upon Tassifer. "_Ass-eroid!_" he shouted. "Don't get excited, Judson," commented Bentham patronizingly. "You make me tired!" retorted his agricultural friend. "What difference does it make _what_ it is, if it's been put out of business?" "What do you mean?" cried Bentham. "Has anything unusual occurred?" "Haven't you seen the papers?" inquired Judson. "Huh! If you're so blamed slow, lemme--I mean, let me--read it to you." "Sure!" nodded Bentham. "Another sherry and bitters--and another mint julep," he added to the bartender, after a moment's reflection. "Listen here," began Judson, elevating a newspaper which had been lying flat on the bar: "'Extry'! Collision between ass--ass--what d'you call it?" Tassifer grabbed the paper quickly out of his hand. "As-ter-oid," he articulated snappishly. "Let me see it. I can read." He read: