Why, said I,—­The Dictator,—­what is there to prevent beings of another order from being as cheerful, as social, as good companions, as the very liveliest of God’s creatures whom we have known in the flesh?  Is it impossible for an archangel to smile?  Is such a phenomenon as a laugh never heard except in our little sinful corner of the universe?  Do you suppose, that when the disciples heard from the lips of their Master the play of words on the name of Peter, there was no smile of appreciation on the bearded faces of those holy men?  From any other lips we should have called this pleasantry a—­

Number Five shook her head very slightly, and gave me a look that seemed to say, “Don’t frighten the other Teacups.  We don’t call things by the names that belong to them when we deal with celestial subjects.”

We tied up, as my attendant playfully called our resting, so near the planet that I could know—­I will not say see and hear, but apprehend—­all that was going on in that remote sphere; remote, as we who live in what we have been used to consider the centre of the rational universe regard it.  What struck me at once was the deadness of everything I looked upon.  Dead, uniform color of surface and surrounding atmosphere.  Dead complexion of all the inhabitants.  Dead-looking trees, dead-looking grass, no flowers to be seen anywhere.

“What is the meaning of all this?” I said to my guide.

She smiled good-naturedly, and replied, “It is a forlorn home for anything above a lichen or a toadstool; but that is no wonder, when you know what the air is which they breathe.  It is pure nitrogen.”

The Professor spoke up.  “That can’t be, madam,” he said.  “The spectroscope shows the atmosphere of Saturn to be—­no matter, I have forgotten what; but it was not pure nitrogen, at any rate.”

Number Five is never disconcerted.  “Will you tell me,” she said, “where you have found any account of the bands and lines in the spectrum of dream-nitrogen?  I should be so pleased to become acquainted with them.”

The Professor winced a little, and asked Delilah, the handmaiden, to pass a plate of muffins to him.  The dream had carried him away, and he thought for the moment that he was listening to a scientific paper.

Of course, my companion went on to say, the bodily constitution of the Saturnians is wholly different from that of air-breathing, that is oxygen-breathing, human beings.  They are the dullest, slowest, most torpid of mortal creatures.

All this is not to be wondered at when you remember the inert characteristics of nitrogen.  There are in some localities natural springs which give out slender streams of oxygen.  You will learn by and by what use the Saturnians make of this dangerous gas, which, as you recollect, constitutes about one fifth of your own atmosphere.  Saturn has large lead mines, but no other metal is found on this planet.  The inhabitants have nothing else to make tools of, except stones and shells.  The mechanical arts have therefore made no great progress among them.  Chopping down a tree with a leaden axe is necessarily a slow process.