So rapid was my progress now, under the spur of my desire for human companionship, that within a very few days I was able to graduate from my primers and read real books.
One of the first real books which they brought me was a history of their world; and this interested me greatly, as it furnished a setting for the experiences which shortly were to crowd upon me. The book confirmed my theory that this world was the silver planet, Venus.
Finally I reached a point where my interest was such that I could not wait to wade further through the voluminous pages; so, taking my pad and pencil I asked Doggo: “Tell me briefly about the more recent events on Poros.” For so they called the planet, though of course, I did not yet know the sound of this word, nor even whether it had a sound. “Tell me more particularly about the great war.”
“Well,” he replied, also in writing, of course, “A little over five hundred years ago the entire inhabited part of the planet Poros, that is to say the continent which is surrounded by the boiling sea, was divided up into twenty or more warring kingdoms of Cupians and one small queendom of ant-men, namely Formia.
“The Formians, who were possessed of all the virtues, became more and more vexed with the increasing degeneracy of their neighbors, until, for purely altruistic reasons, the Formians began a conquest to extend their culture.
“When the first convenient excuse offered, we declared war on one of the Cupian nations, which we proceeded to attack through the territory of a neutral state.”
He admitted: “I suppose that you are right and that it really was a violation of all treaties and of the solemn customs of the planet. But it was all in a noble cause.
“The other nations did not have sense enough,” he continued “to rally to combat the common menace, and so the Formians gradually conquered them one by one, until at last Formia was mistress of all Poros.
“There must have been some very able statesmen in the Imperial Council at that time, judging by the terms imposed by our conquering nation. We erected a fence, or ‘pale,’ across the middle of the entire continent; and all the Cupians, regardless of their former boundaries, were organized into a single nation to the north of this pale. The nation was named Cupia, after the creatures who composed it, and Kew the First was made its king.”