“We neither eat, drink, nor sleep; require no clothing, that is no _renewal_ of clothing, for this cassock is the shade of the last costume I wore when on earth, and will probably last me till the Crack of Doom; consequently we are enabled to employ the whole of our time in scientific research.” “Might I venture to inquire into the nature of your scientific studies?” I timidly inquired. “Why certainly,” he replied, rubbing his forehead reflectively; and as he drew his hand across the noble expanse of his frontal bone, I could see a rush of little sparks follow his shadowy fingers. This set me to gaze more intently at his phenomenal person, and as I did so I was surprised to find that I could see quite through what should have been the frontal bone, and there, in the cavity of the cranium, I beheld his brain at work thinking. It simply appeared like revolving smoke curling this way and that, and taking fantastic forms; halting, and then moving on again in complex but orderly movement. Seeing my utter astonishment, he good-naturedly enlightened me as to the strange appearance. “The brain,” said he, “is _the man_, it never dies, and in our case is the only part which does not entirely become spirit, that is, _transparent_ spirit. It always remains a foggy, cloudy kind of ether, visible to mortals; and they are constantly walking through and sitting surrounded by it, though they know it not. “You probably do not believe in ghosts or spirits, yet you are surrounded by them day and night, and when, by a variety of accidental causes, one becomes materialized you see it, and immediately write off to a newspaper about it as something wonderful. Ha! ha! If I could only open your eyes and show you the number of ghosts in this silent and solitary spot you would scarcely believe your eyes; there are thousands!” Then looking at me with his peculiar, luminous eyes he inquired, “Did you ever notice a kind of mist floating over graveyards during certain days of damp, muggy weather?” “Yes,” I replied, “often; but what of that?” “What of that!--why,” continued Bacon, “that is the spirit, the soul, _the brain_ of disembodied mortals, which floats till the Final Day just above the ground, the rock, the sea, or wherever the body was buried.” I marvelled at this, whereupon my communicative friend went further, and said:-- “Do you not know that these spirits may be conversed with by mortals? You have a certain control over electricity, you have the phonograph, the electrophone, and the telephone--trifles in comparison to what we have invented in Mars--but with these you have only to proceed in this way. You simply----” But ere he uttered another word a wind swept through the wood with a crackling sound, at which the Friar bowed his head and quietly uttered the words “I obey!” It was evident by his uneasy movements and facial expression that he had been stayed from enlightening me further by some unseen spirits, so, to turn the subject, I said:--