he set to work to find new vegetable surprises,
greatly enjoying my wonder and the sense of importance it gave him.

In this way we came, later on in the day, to a spot where herbage was
somewhat scantier, the grass coarse, and soil shallow. Here I espied a
tree of small size, apparently withered, but still bearing a few
parched leaves on its uppermost twigs.

"Now that," quoth the professor, "is a highly curious tree, and I
should like you to make a close acquaintance with it. It grows from a
seed in the course of a single springtime, perishes in the summer; but
a few specimens stand throughout the winter, provided the situation is
sheltered, as this one has done. If you will kindly go down and shake
its stem I believe you will learn something interesting."

So, very willing to humour him, away I went to the tree, which was
perfect in every detail, but apparently very dry, clasped it with both
hands, and, pulling myself together, gave it a mighty shake. The
result was instantaneous. The whole thing was nothing but a skin of
dust, whence all fibre and sap had gone, and at my touch it dissolved
into a cloud of powder, a huge puff of white dust which descended on me
as though a couple of flour-bags had been inverted over my head; and as
I staggered out sneezing and blinking, white as a miller from face to
foot, the Martian burst into a wild, joyous peal of laughter that made
the woods ring again. His merriment was so sincere I had not the heart
to be angry, and soon laughed as loud as he did; though, for the
future, I took his botanical essays with a little more caution.

CHAPTER XIV

That woodman friend of mine proved so engaging it was difficult to get
away, and thus when, dusk upon us, and my object still a long distance
off, he asked me to spend the night at his hut, I gladly assented.

We soon reached the cabin where the man lived by himself whilst working
in the forest. It was a picturesque little place on a tree-overhung
lagoon, thatched, wattled, and all about were piles of a
pleasant-scented bark, collected for the purpose of tanning hides, and
I could not but marvel that such a familiar process should be practised
identically on two sides of the universal ether. But as a matter of
fact the similarity of many details of existence here and there was the
most striking of the things I learned whilst in the red planet.

Within the hut stood a hearth in the centre of the floor, whereon a
comfortable