epositions, and the sort of hackneyed figures
of speech, by means of which so much is expressed on earth, it was like
diving in cork-jackets. Indeed, these difficulties were insurmountable
until to the sixth lesson came a fourth assistant, a being with a huge
football-shaped head, whose forte was clearly the pursuit of intricate
analogy. He entered in a preoccupied manner, stumbling against a stool,
and the difficulties that arose had to be presented to him with a certain
amount of clamour and hitting and pricking before they reached his
apprehension. But once he was involved his penetration was amazing.
Whenever there came a need of thinking beyond Phi-oo's by no means limited
scope, this prolate-headed person was in request, but he invariably told
the conclusion to Tsi-puff, in order that it might be remembered; Tsi-puff
was ever the arsenal for facts. And so we advanced again.

"It seemed long and yet brief--a matter of days--before I was positively
talking with these insects of the moon. Of course, at first it was an
intercourse infinitely tedious and exasperating, but imperceptibly it has
grown to comprehension. And my patience has grown to meet its limitations,
Phi-oo it is who does all the talking. He does it with a vast amount of
meditative provisional 'M'm--M'm' and has caught up one or two phrases,
'If I may say,' 'If you understand,' and beads all his speech with them.

"Thus he would discourse. Imagine him explaining his artist.

"'M'm--M'm--he--if I may say--draw. Eat little--drink little--draw.
Love draw. No other thing. Hate all who not draw like him. Angry. Hate all
who draw like him better. Hate most people. Hate all who not think all
world for to draw. Angry. M'm. All things mean nothing to him--only draw.
He like you ... if you understand.... New thing to draw. Ugly--striking.
Eh?

"'He'--turning to Tsi-puff--'love remember words. Remember wonderful
more than any. Think no, draw no--remember. Say'--here he referred to
his gifted assistant for a word--'histories--all things. He hear
once--say ever.'

"It is more wonderful to me than I dreamt that anything ever could be
again, to hear, in this perpetual obscurity, these extraordinary
creatures--for even familiarity fails to weaken the inhuman effect of
their appearance--continually piping a nearer approach to coherent earthly
speech--asking questions, giving answers. I feel that I am casting back
to the fable-hearing period of childhood again, when