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 me from replying. He clung to my other hand and begged me to remain forever among them. "Never in my life," he assured me, "have I experienced the exquisite diversion enjoyed in your company. Your skill as a tragedian is genius, your interpretations famous. Ah, Virgillius, your amazing capabilities will force the public to comprehend the great tragedies that no Centaurian can act. The powerful masterpieces of morbid imaginations shall cease to be farces."

I listened attentively, not certain if they were making sport or meant it, but both seemed ridiculous and I laughed. The laugh was taken up heartily and both gentlemen simultaneously dropped my hands, each declaring gravely I was deep, deep as the fire geyser in the ice summit. Then one, throwing out his chest, cried: "Attention, friends! Will sensations ever cease? or is it the commencement of the end when the world will explode into millions of particles, as Thoralda the Great predicts Listen: first, Virgillius and his friends drop among us from, no one knows where, to overpower us with their marvelous experiences. Then the Otega becomes active after six centuries of repose. And now comes this splendid savage, the Prince of Vespas, ruler of the land of hornets, whose swift progression dares them to defy even Sol. We are far in the rear of these wonderful people, they would elevate us by sending the most audacious hornet of them all—for what? To mate with the rarest and most perfect of Centaurians, Alpha, Priestess of the Sun, who can never mate. Jingle