“Yes.” responded TIME, “but, after all, you know, telescopic intercourse is not entirely satisfactory.  Like EDGAR POE’s Hans Pfaal, I feel I should like to come to closer quarters with the ‘heavenly bodies’ as the pedagogues call them.”

“And why not?” queried Mr. Punch, coolly.

“As how?” asked his companion.

“TIME, my boy” laughed the Sage, “you seem a bit behind yourself.  Listen!  ’Mr. EDISON is prosecuting an experiment designed to catch and record the sounds made in the sun’s photosphere when solar spots are formed by eruptions beneath the surface.’  Have you not read the latest of the Edisoniana?”

TIME admitted he had not.

  “TIME, you rogue, you love to get
  Sweets upon your list—­put that in,”

quoted the Sage.  “Something piquant for the 6001st Vol. of your Chronicles.  But, after all, what is EDISON compared with Me?  If you really wish for a turn round the Solar System, a peregrination of the Planets, put aside that antiquated spy-glass of yours and come with Me!”

And, “taking TIME by the forelock,” in a very real sense, the Sage of Fleet Street rose with him like a Brock rocket, high, and swift, and light-compelling, into the star-spangled vault of heaven.

“SIC ITUR AD ASTRA!” said the Sage.

  “Twinkle, twinkle, Fleet Street Star! 
  Saturn wonders who you are,
  Up above the world so high,
  Like a portent in the sky. 
  Wonders if, Jove-like, you want,
  Him to banish and supplant! 
  Fear not, Saturn; Punch’s bolt
  Arms Right Order, not Revolt;
  Dread no fratricidal wars
  From this ‘Star’ among the Stars!”

* * * * *

VISIT TO SATURN.

“I am glad to hear that, at any rate,” said Saturn, welcoming the illustrious guests to his remote golden-ringed realm.

[Illustration]

Saturn, however, did not look exactly comfortable, and his voice, how unlike “To that large utterance of the early gods,” sounded quavering and querulous.

“It is customary,” said he, “to talk, as the old Romans rather confusedly did, of ‘the Saturnian reign’ as the true ‘Golden Age,’ identified with civilisation, social order, economic perfection, and agricultural profusion.  As a matter of fact, I’ve always been treated badly, from the day when Jupiter dethroned me to that when, the Grand Old Man—­who ought to have had more sympathy with me—­banished hither the strife-engendering Pedant’s hotch-potch called Political Economy.”

“Be comforted, Saturn, old boy—­I am here!” cried Mr. Punch.  “I am ‘personally conducting’ Father TIME in a tour of the Planets.  Let’s have a look round your realm!”

Mr. Punch sums up much of what he saw in modern “Saturnian Verses.”

Punch.  Good gracious! my worthy old Ancient, who once held the sway
    of the heavens,
  Your realm seems a little bit shaky; what mortals call “sixes and
    sevens”!