CHAPTER VI.
After the _Astronef's_ forward searchlight had flashed its farewells to the thronging, cheering crowds of Washington, her propellers began to whirl, and she swung round northward on her way to say goodbye to the Empire City.
A little before midnight her two lights flashed down over New York and Brooklyn, and were almost instantly answered by hundreds of electric beams streaming up from different parts of the Twin Cities, and from several men-of-war lying in the bay and the river.
"Goodbye for the present! Have you any messages for Mars ?" flickered out from above the _Astronef's_ conning-tower.
What Uncle Sam's message was, if he had one, was never deciphered, for fifty beams began dotting and dashing at once, and the result was that nothing but a blur of many mingled rays reached the conning-tower from which Lord Redgrave and his bride were taking their last look at human habitations.
"You might have known that they would all answer at once," said Zaidie.
"I suppose the newspapers, of course, want interviews with the leading Martians, and the others want to know what there is to be done in the way of trade.

Anyhow, it would be a feather in Uncle Sam's cap if he made the first Reciprocity Treaty with another world." "And then proceeded to corner the commerce of the Solar System," laughed Redgrave.

"Well, we'll see what can be done.

Although I think, as an Englishman, I ought to look after the Open Door." "So that the Germans could get in before you, eh?
That's just like you dear, good-natured English.

But look," she went on, pointing downwards, "they're signalling again, all at once this time." Half a dozen beams shone out together from the principal newspaper offices of New York.