Patty waved her hand to indicate the irrelevancy of the suggestion. "In a planet where, we are told, there are no vicissitudes of climate, people can't catch colds, Elizabeth; and colds, all the doctors say, are the primary cause of illness, and it is because they get ill that people die. That is a detail. Don't interrupt me. So you see, Mr. Yelverton, assuming that they knew all that we know, and did all that we do, before the fire and the water made our rocks and seas, and the chalk beds grew, and the slimy things crawled, and primitive man began to chip stones into wedges to kill the saurians with--just imagine for a moment the state of civilisation that must exist in Jupiter, _now_. Not necessarily our own Jupiter--any of the older and more improved Jupiters that must be spinning about in space." "I can't," said Mr. Yelverton. "My imagination is not equal to such a task." "I want Elizabeth to think of it," said Patty. "She is a little inclined to be provincial, as you see, and I want to elevate her ideas." "Thank you, dear," said Elizabeth. "It is a pity," Patty went on, "that we can't have a Federal Convention. That's what we want. If only the inhabited planets could send representatives to meet and confer together somewhere occasionally, then we should all have broad views--then we might find out at once how to set everything right, without any more trouble." "Space would have to be annihilated indeed, Miss Patty." "Yes, I know--I know. Of course I know it can't be done--at any rate, not _yet_--not in the present embryonic stage of things. If a meteor takes a million years to travel from star to star, going at the rate of thousands of miles per second--and keeps on paying visits indefinitely--Ah, what was that?" She sprang from her low seat suddenly, all her celestial fancies scattered to the mundane winds, at the sound of a wakeful magpie beginning to pipe plaintively on the house roof. She thought she recognised one of the dear voices of the past. "_Can_ it be Peter?" she cried, breathlessly. "Oh, Elizabeth, I do believe it is Peter! Do come out and let us call him down!" They hurried, hand in hand, down to the shelving terrace that divided the verandah from the edge of the cliff, and there called and cooed and coaxed in their most seductive tones. The magpie looked at them for a moment, with his head cocked on one side, and then flew away. "No," said Patty, with a groan, "it is _not_ Peter! They are all gone, every one of them. I have no doubt the Hawkins boys shot them--little bloodthirsty wretches! Come down to the beach, Elizabeth."