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[Illustration:  PUNCHIUS PHOEBUS, THE GREAT UNIVERSAL HYPNOTISER.

("He who must be Obeyed!”)

A TRANSFORMATION SCENE.]

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VISIT TO THE DOG-STAR.

[Illustration:  THE DOG STAR]

“Take care of the plank, Sir,” I said, as my esteemed master lightly skipped across the gangway, marshalling a well-grown youth carrying a scythe; “we don’t have many visitors here.  One who looked in the other day slipped his foot, fell over, and we’ve never seen him since.  Listening intently, watch in hand, we heard a slight thud, and have reason to believe he dropped on Jupiter.  It was useful to us, seeing that, by use of a well-known formula, we were able to reckon our precise distance from that planet.  For him, I fancy, it must have been inconvenient.”

“Are you serious, TOBY?” said Mr. Punch, stepping with added caution.

“No, Sir, I’m not.  This,” I said, waving my hand with graceful and comprehensive gesture around the orb where I am temporarily located, “this is Sirius.”

“Ah, I see,” said Mr. P., glad to find himself with his foot on our native heath; “I want to present you to an old friend, whom, I am afraid, you have sometimes misused.  TIME, this is TOBY, M.P., a humble but faithful member of my terrestrial suite.  I am showing the young fellow round, TOBY, and we looked in on you, hearing that you had a Parliament that should serve as a model for the firmament.”

“I am afraid,” observed TIME, whittling a piece of stick with his scythe, “that we may have looked in at a wrong season.  As far as I can judge from a consideration of the temperature, and a glance round your landscape, we are now at Midsummer—­in the dog days, if I may so put it without offence.  Of course your legislators would not be in Town just now, sweltering at work that might as well be performed in winter weather, when, regarded as a place of business or residence, Town has attractions superior to those of the country.”  “Ah, young fellow,” I said, perhaps a little sharply, not relishing his somewhat round-about way of putting things, “when you are as old as me or my esteemed master, you will not be so cock-sure of things.  Our Parliamentary Session begins on the threshold of Spring; we stop in Town hard at work, through the pleasantest months of the year; we toil through Summer nights, see August out, and, somewhere about the first week in September, when the days are growing short, the air is chill, and Autumn gets ready to usher in Winter, we go off to make holiday.”

“Dear me, dear me!” cried Mr. P., “how very sad.  How deliberately foolish.  We manage things much better than that down in our tight little Earth.  When we take that in turn, you will find, my good TIME, that we burrow at our legislative work through the Winter months, getting it done so as to leave us free to enjoy the country in the prime of Spring, and amid the wealth of Summer.  But come along, TOBY, let’s get on to your House.”