for ever taking off its hat to the flat-faced old moon, who is always trying to show off with borrowed light, makes such a monstrous secret of her "other side," is perpetually being snubbed by eclipses, and made fun of by stars that go and get occultated by her? But there are objections to discarding the luminary, for it is never a graceful act to turn off an old dependant, and, besides, the moon is about as economical a contrivance as we could have for keeping up the normal average of lunatics, giving dogs something to bark at by night when they cannot see anything else, and affording us an opportunity of showing that respect for antiquities which is so becoming. But what business the Man in the Moon has there, remains to be decided; and who gave him permission to go collecting firewood in our moon, remains to be seen. For it is well to remember that a very distinguished French savant has proved that the moon is the private property of the Earth. We used, he says, to do very well without a moon once upon a time; but going along on our orbit one day, we picked up the present luminary--then a mere vagabond, a disreputable vagrant mass of matter, with no visible means of subsistence--"and shall, perhaps, in the future pick up other moons in the same way." As a matter of fact then, he declares the moon to be a dependant of our Earth, and says that if we were selfishly to withdraw our "attraction" from it, the poor old luminary would tumble into space, and never be able to stop herself, or, worse still, might come into collision with some wandering comet or other, and get blown up entirely. We ought, therefore, to think kindly of the faithful old creature; but we should not, all the same, allow any length of service to blind us to the actual relations between her and ourselves--much less to make us frightened of the moon. But the man in the moon should be seen to. He is either there or he is not. If he is, he ought to pay taxes: and if he is not, he has no right to go on pretending that he is. CHAPTER XXIX. Frogs, in the swamp, and as a side-dish--Negroids of the swamp age--Something like a mouth--Honour in your own country--The Land Of Promise--Civilization again.