“Why do you call them the Ambassadors from Mars?” Lloyd asked.

“I don’t plan to outside the smaller burgs,” replied the professor. “Wouldn’t do a’tall to get the tar bubbling.”

“You mean to fool folks,” the boy chided.

“My young friend, let me say this about that. As a rule, people like to be fooled. If you mean inspired, surprised, delighted-made to wonder and to wish for things. If I can make the world bigger and brighter for a moment for some boot stone or put even a tintype star in the eye of some leather-skinned lass, where’s the crime in that? But when you say fool, you not only make it sound cheap, you make it sound easy-and t’aint always so. You can’t fool or enlighten all the people all the time, son. That’s why it’s so very important to be clear about who you are trying to fool or enlighten at any given time.”

“But they’re not from Mars, are they?” the boy continued (which stirred the Ambassadors into a fit of clicking and grunting).

“No,” agreed the professor, twisting his mustache. “They’re from Indiana, far as I know. That’s where I found ’em, at any rate. But their story is just as hard to swallow, in its own way. The free niggers looking after them swore on the Bible that these two were dropped out of a tornado.”

“A tornado?” Lloyd puzzled.

Mulrooney held his hand over his heart. “Urim and Thummim came down out of the storm unharmed about two years ago, they said. No hint of where they started from or who their real family was. The niggers took it as a sign from the Almighty and took ’em in, but they kept ’em hidden in their barn for fear of someone doing ’em harm.”

“So you bought them?” Lloyd asked, thinking back to how he had been hidden away in the family barn.