A Piquant Trait of the Peculiar Psyche of Contemporary Man

CHAPTER XI

A Piquant Trait of the Peculiar Psyche of Contemporary Man

NOW let us return to those three-brained beings arising on the planet Earth, who have interested you most of all and whom you have called ‘slugs.’

“I shall begin by saying how glad I am that you happen to be a long way from those three-centered beings whom you called by a word so ‘insulting to their dignity’ and that they are not likely ever to hear of it.

“Do you know, you poor thing, you small boy not yet aware of himself, what they would do to you, particularly the contemporary beings there, if they should hear what you called them?

“What they would have done to you if you had been there and if they had got hold of you—I am seized with horror at the very mention of it.

“At best they would have thrashed you so, that as our Mullah Nassr Eddin there says, ‘you wouldn’t have recovered your senses before the next crop of birches.’

“In any case, I advise you that, whenever you start anything new, you should always bless Fate and beseech her mercy, that she should always be on guard and prevent the beings of the planet Earth from ever suspecting that you, my beloved and only grandson, dared to call them ‘slugs.’

“You must know that during the time of my observations of them from the planet Mars and during the periods of my existence among them, I studied the psyche of these strange three-brained beings very thoroughly, and so I already know very well what they would do to anybody who dared to give them such a nickname.