nt of their minds, and of the immense progress which they had made
in the direction of the scientific conquest of nature, that it was not
to be supposed their medium of communication with one another would be
lacking in clearness, or would possess any of the puzzling and unnecessary
ambiguities that characterized the languages spoken on the earth.

"We shall not find them making he's and she's of stones, sticks and
other inanimate objects," said one of the American linguists. "They must
certainly have gotten rid of all that nonsense long ago."

"Ah," said a French professor from the Sorbonne, one of the makers of
the never-to-be-finished dictionary. "It will be like the language of
my country. Transparent, similar to the diamond, and sparkling as is
the fountain."

The Volapuk of Mars.

"I think," said a German enthusiast, "that it will be a universal
language, the Volapuk of Mars, spoken by all the inhabitants of that
planet."

"But all these speculations," broke in Mr. Edison, "do not help you
much. Why not begin in a practical manner by finding out what the Martian
calls himself, for instance."

This seemed a good suggestion, and accordingly several of the bystanders
began an expressive pantomime, intended to indicate to the giant, who was
following all their motions with his eyes, that they wished to know by
what name he called himself. Pointing their fingers to their own breasts
they repeated, one after the other, the word "man."

If our prisoner had been a stupid savage, of course any such attempt
as this to make him understand would have been idle. But it must be
remembered that we were dealing with a personage who had presumably
inherited from hundreds of generations the results of a civilization,
and an intellectual advance, measured by the constant progress of millions
of years.

Accordingly we were not very much astonished, when, after a few
repetitions of the experiment, the Martian--one of whose arms had been
partially released from its bonds in order to give him a little freedom
of motion--imitated the action of his interrogators by pressing his
finger over his heart.

The Martian Speaks.

Then, opening his mouth, he gave utterance to a sound which shook the air
of the car like the hoarse roar of a lion. He seemed himself surprised
by the noise he made, for he had not been used to speak in so dense
an atmosphere.

Our ears were deafened and confused, and we recoiled in astonishment,
not