“Lovely enough, but more bother than all the rest of ’em put together. She’ll get into trouble some of these days--there are half-a-dozen Comets after her as it is--no self-respect, you see; so different from Jupiter.” “He was always your favourite.” “No, no, I have no favourites, unless my own little Mercury may so be called. But Jupiter has such a distinguished way with him. No folly, no giddiness. Always the same. A thousand pities he’s got such a wretched climate. I’m doing what I can, but I haven’t yet been able to get anything to live on Jupiter but frogs, and a few of the lower reptiles.” “How’s the Earth?” “Don’t ask me--the black sheep of the System! The ingratitude of that planet! They’ve got a little dead cinder that circles round them, according to the laws of gravitation; and, would you believe it? they think twice as much of that cinder as they do of me! A fact. They call it the Moon and write poetry to it. The Earth people have, in fact, reached a trying stage. They are growing out of childhood, but still lie far removed from the solidity and reasoning powers proper to an adult. They are funny, too. Here’s a bit of New Humour to take away with you. What d’you think they believed till the last few years?” “Sure I don’t know,” said the Comet. “That I went round them! They thought that they were the centre of the Universe, and that Creation circled round and round them, just in the same way that their little pet cinder, they call the Moon, goes round and round them!” “Blessed if that isn’t the funniest thing I’ve heard for ten million years!” said the Comet. “I’ll make my little corner in Space fairly scream with that!” He was genuinely amused, and shook to such an extent that he gave rise to considerable disturbances on a large scale. “Look out, old man! you’re upsetting my System!” said the Sun. “Smother your System!” yelled the Comet. “That little pill of mud and water to think itself the centre of all things! Why don’t you smash it or frizzle it up?” “We must be patient. It knows somewhat better now. If it would only be commonly grateful and realise a little of what it owed me, I would overlook the bumptiousness. That’s natural to all small things.” “I believe you. For sheer side, not to say impertinence, commend me to shooting-stars. Space is full of them, and they go slogging about in clusters, as if the Universe had been designed for nothing but their especial amusement and convenience. Little cads! They always think it a huge joke to go right through me like a bullet through a piece of paper.” “But they can’t hurt you.” “No, not physically; it’s the moral disgrace of the thing. One feels so powerless against the little brutes; and satire’s thrown away on ’em.”