"Oh, it has plenty of advantages," said the Comet, shaking his head wisely. "In the first place if you have a language all your own, that nobody else knows, nobody else can write a poem in it. You have the whole field to yourself. Just think how great a man would be if he was the only one to understand English and write poetry in it. He'd get all the money that ever was paid for English poetry, which would be a fortune. It would come to at least $800, which is a good deal of money, considering." "Considering what?" asked Jimmieboy. "Considering what it would bring if wisely invested," said the Comet. "Did you ever think of what $800 was worth in peanuts, for instance." Jimmieboy laughed at the idea of spending $800 in peanuts, and then he said: "No, I never thought anything about it. What is it worth in peanuts?" "Well," said the Comet, scratching his head with his tail, "it's a very hard bit of arithmetic, but, I'll try to write it out for you. Peanuts, you know, cost ten cents a quart." "Do they?" said Jimmieboy. "I never bought a whole quart at once. I've only paid five cents a pint." "Well, five cents a pint is English for ten cents a quart," said the Comet, "and in $800 there are eight thousand ten centses, so that you could get eight thousand quarts of peanuts for $800. Now every quart of peanuts holds about fifty peanut shellfuls, so that eight thousand quarts of peanuts equal four hundred thousand peanuts shellfuls. Each peanut shell holds two small nuts so that in four hundred thousand of them there are eight hundred thousand nuts." "Phe-e-ew!" whistled Jimmieboy. "What a feast." "Yes," said the Comet, "but just you wait. Suppose you ate one of these nuts a minute, do you know how long it would take you, eating eight hours a day, to eat up the whole lot?" "No," said Jimmieboy, beginning to feel a little awed at the wondrous possibilities of $800 in peanuts. "Four years, six months, three weeks and six days, and you'd have to eat Sundays to get through it in that time," said the Comet. "In soda water it would be quite as awful and in peppermint sticks at two cents a foot it would bring you a stick forty thousand feet, or more than seven miles long." "Isn't $800 wonderful," said Jimmieboy, overcome by the mere thought of so much peppermint candy. "Yes--but really I am much more wonderful when you think of me. You haven't been on my back more than ten minutes and yet in that time I have taken you all around the world," said the Comet. "All the way!" said Jimmieboy. "Yes," said the Comet, stopping suddenly. "Here we are back at your window again." "But I didn't see China, and I wanted to," said the boy. "Can't help it," said the Comet. "You had your chance, but you preferred to talk about poetry and peanuts. It isn't my fault. Off with you, now."