“I see what you mean,” I said: “but I’m afraid you can’t prove swimming to be safe, on the same principle. It is no uncommon thing to hear of someone being drowned.”
“In my country,” said Mein Herr, “no one is ever drowned.”
“Is there no water deep enough?”
“Plenty! But we can’t sink. We are all lighter than water. Let me explain,” he added, seeing my look of surprise. “Suppose you desire a race of pigeons of a particular shape or colour, do you not select, from year to year, those that are nearest to the shape or colour you want, and keep those, and part with the others?”
“We do,” I replied. “We call it ‘Artificial Selection.’ ”
“Exactly so,” said Mein Herr. “Well, we have practised that for some centuries—constantly selecting the lightest people: so that, now, everybody is lighter than water.”
“Then you never can be drowned at sea?”
“Never! It is only on the land—for instance, when attending a play in a theatre—that we are in such a danger.”
“How can that happen at a theatre?”
“Our theatres are all underground. Large tanks of water are placed above. If a fire breaks out, the taps are turned, and in one minute the theatre is flooded, up to the very roof! Thus the fire is extinguished.”
“And the audience, I presume?”
“That is a minor matter,” Mein Herr carelessly replied. “But they have the comfort of knowing that, whether drowned or not, they are all lighter than water. We have not yet reached the standard of making people lighter than air: but we are aiming at it; and, in another thousand years or so—”
“What doos oo do wiz the peoples that’s too heavy?” Bruno solemnly enquired.
“We have applied the same process,” Mein Herr continued, not noticing Bruno’s question, “to many other purposes. We have gone on selecting walking-sticks—always keeping those that walked best—till we have obtained some, that can walk by themselves! We have gone on selecting cotton-wool, till we have got some lighter than air! You’ve no idea what a useful material it is! We call it ‘Imponderal.’ ”
“What do you use it for?”
“Well, chiefly for packing articles, to go by Parcel-Post. It makes them weigh less than nothing, you know.”
“And how do the Post-Office people know what you have to pay?”
“That’s the beauty of the new system!” Mein Herr cried exultingly. “They pay us: we don’t pay them! I’ve often got as much as five shillings for sending a parcel.”
“But doesn’t your Government object?”
“Well, they do object, a little. They say it comes so expensive, in the long run. But the thing’s as clear as daylight, by their own rules. If I send a parcel, that weighs a pound more than nothing, I pay threepence: so, of course, if it weighs a pound less than nothing, I ought to receive threepence.”
“It is indeed a useful article!” I said.
“Yet even ‘Imponderal’ has its disadvantages,” he resumed. “I bought some, a few days ago, and put it into my hat, to carry it home, and the hat simply floated away!”
“Had oo some of that funny stuff in oor hat today?” Bruno enquired. “Sylvie and me saw oo in the road, and oor hat were ever so high up! Weren’t it, Sylvie?”
“No, that was quite another thing,” said Mein Herr. “There was a drop or two of rain falling: so I put my hat on the top of my stick—as an umbrella, you know. As I came along the road,” he continued, turning to me, “I was overtaken by—”
“⸺a shower of rain?” said Bruno.
“Well, it looked more like the tail of a dog,” Mein Herr replied. “It was the most curious thing! Something rubbed affectionately against my knee. And I looked down. And I could see nothing! Only, about a yard off, there was a dog’s tail, wagging, all by itself!”
“Oh, Sylvie!” Bruno murmured reproachfully. “Oo didn’t finish making him visible!”
“I’m so sorry!” Sylvie said, looking very penitent. “I meant to rub it along his back, but we were in such a hurry. We’ll go and finish him tomorrow. Poor thing! Perhaps he’ll get no supper tonight!”
“Course he won’t!” said Bruno. “Nobody never gives bones to a dog’s tail!”
Mein Herr looked from one to the other in blank astonishment. “I do not understand you,” he said. “I had lost my way, and I was consulting a pocket-map, and somehow I had dropped one of my gloves, and this invisible Something, that had rubbed against my knee, actually brought it back to me!”
“Course he did!” said Bruno. “He’s welly fond of fetching things.”
Mein Herr looked so thoroughly bewildered that I thought it best to change the subject. “What a useful thing a pocket-map is!” I remarked.
“That’s another thing we’ve learned from your Nation,” said Mein Herr, “map-making. But we’ve carried it much further than you. What do you consider the largest map that would be really useful?”
“About six inches to the mile.”
“Only six inches!” exclaimed Mein Herr. “We very soon got to six yards to the mile. Then we tried a hundred yards to the mile. And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!”
“Have you used it much?” I enquired.
“It has never been spread out, yet,” said Mein Herr: “the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well. Now let me ask you another question. What is the smallest world you would care to inhabit?”
“I know!” cried Bruno, who was listening intently. “I’d like a little teeny-tiny world, just big enough for Sylvie and me!”
“Then you would have to stand on opposite sides of it,” said Mein Herr. “And so you would never see your sister at all!”
“And I’d have no lessons,” said Bruno.
“You don’t mean to say you’ve been trying experiments in that direction!” I said.
“Well, not experiments exactly. We
