Directing his eyes full upon my face with a concentrated stare that held my attention fixed and unwavering, d'Aragno started, and his harangue proceeded with scarcely a break for four hours, of which here I can only inscribe a few disjointed fragments. "You progressive and enlightened peoples of the important planet known as the Earth have in your own estimation acquired an immense store of knowledge, not only of things terrestrial but also of the entire scheme celestial. Your astronomers talk glibly of the presence of various metals in the Moon, of the luminous rings of Saturn, of artificial canals in Mars; you reckon with accuracy on the times and seasons of the wandering comets which you christen by the names of their discoverers--and yet, and yet you have not learnt our secret, The Secret!... "On your aerial charts there is marked a tiny planet belonging to our solar system which your scientists, following an absurd method of nomenclature from the venue of classical mythology, have dubbed Meleager. Being small, it is held of no account by your star-gazing wiseacres, whilst the average layman of intelligence has probably never so much as heard its name. Is not that so? Have you yourself any knowledge of its existence? (I shook my head.) Now let me tell you that Meleager is an Earth in miniature; its inhabitants, its natural features, its vegetation, its fauna have all developed under identical conditions in the past, so that, were any traveller from Herthus to be unexpectedly translated thither, he would almost certainly imagine he had only found his way to some hitherto unexplored subtropical region of his own Earth. _I_ am a native of Meleager, and I am moreover one of its small band of citizens who possess its secret, which has been handed down from its original inventors to their successors through countless centuries of time. How, when and by whom The Secret came into existence I know not; and did I know, I should not inform you; but this much I am empowered to say; there is intercommunication of long standing between our small planet and your larger one; or rather, to use exact language, a limited knot of persons in Meleager own the power of visiting your Earth from time to time for certain purposes, one of which I shall presently disclose to you, as it concerns intimately our meeting and conversation this night. It is now five years and more since I have been dwelling in an alien world, making a careful scrutiny in connection with the mission that has been entrusted me by the innermost circle of the ruling caste which alone controls the polity of Meleager. I am, as it were, an ambassador to the Earth, but one whose credentials have never been presented, who has no staff of legation, no chancellery, and whose position is one-sided, for it is unknown to, and unacknowledged by, the countries to which he has been sent. I have been commanded to inquire into and report upon many terrestrial