“There, get along, ye mortals of to-day!” and the little man rolled about with laughter, “ye laggards, why, if half-a-dozen of our company in Mars had had _your_ scientific instruments and delicate machinery in _our_ day we should have made an entirely different world of this earth. Why, my old friend Archimedes would have obtained a fulcrum for his lever long before now, and if no one had prevented him would have attempted to hurl the earth right out of the planetary system into space. Oh, he is even now a most mischievous fellow, though you would not think it to look at him; his ambition is boundless, and his scientific pranks are at times very reprehensible. Only last week, just for the fun of the thing, he blew Sir Isaac Newton nearly to the sun, and when the poor fellow returned to Mars after several days’ absence we scarcely knew him, he had become so sunburnt with his visit to the suburbs of the great luminary. It was beyond a joke, you know.” Then the little man went off into another paroxysm of laughter at the thought of poor Sir Isaac’s burnt spirit-face. “What,” queried I, “can you tell me of ships and navigation? Have we reached the limit of speed in the merchant service, and the zenith of offensive and defensive power in the Navy?” These questions sent the little man off into a fresh fit of laughter, and he looked at me as much as to say, “You ignoramus, you type of mortal feebleness and conceit.” Presently having calmed down he proceeded:-- “I must tell you that Nelson is with us in spirit, and has turned out a capital inventor. He follows eagerly all that takes place, navally, in the little dots on the globe called Great Britain, and you will scarcely believe it when I tell you, that he has invented a _wooden_ ship that would in one brief hour destroy your entire navy.” “How could it be done?” said I. “Ah! there you are! I cannot _tell_ you, I can only give you an idea. My lord’s ship is of wood, compressed india-rubber, and cork! The only thing you have to discover is how to place your caoutchouc so that when a shot is fired at your ship it passes clean through it and the hole immediately closes, just as the water closes after it is cloven by the ship’s hull. Firing at Nelson’s ship would have the same effect as if you thrust your walking-stick through me or through your own shadow.” “But,” I asked eagerly, “how would he destroy our navy in an hour?” “Why,” said the Friar, “he and Sir Humphrey Davy have invented an explosive of such vast power, that a single pound weight would destroy the strongest ironclad afloat, and he can fire it from an ordinary shoulder gun, with which he delights to practise at the mountains of Mars. He can chip a thousand-ton mountain top off with a single shot; we have to stop him at it, for he quite spoils the scenery, and alters it so completely that we are in danger of losing ourselves. He calls his destructive agent ‘infernite,’ and it really is quite diabolical.”