EXTRA--Four O'Clock--EXTRA! COLLISION BETWEEN ASTEROID AND EARTH AVERTED! PROBABLE SUCCESS OF HOOKER EXPEDITION! MEDUSA NOW OUR SATELLITE! There is every reason to believe that Professor Benjamin Hooker and his daring companions have achieved their stupendous object of diverting the falling asteroid from its course toward the earth, and have thus saved the human race from destruction. Professor Thornton, of the National Observatory, announced the receipt, early this morning, of a cable-despatch from an amateur astronomer at Honolulu, stating that, about ten hours after the time set for the departure of the Hooker Expedition in the Flying Ring, he suddenly observed a yellow glow surrounding the asteroid Medusa. This glow increased in volume and intensity for perhaps five minutes, and then as suddenly ceased, drawing away from the planet like a puff of smoke. No trace of the phenomenon was observed either at the Lick Observatory or in the great one-hundred-inch telescope at Mount Wilson, near Pasadena, the unfavorable position of the asteroid, low down in the western sky, probably accounting for this. All other observatories of note were on the daylight side of the earth at the time. Professor Thornton further announces, however, that the observations upon Medusa's position which were made last night at the various European observatories show conclusively that the path of the asteroid has been changed and its flight toward the sun checked. It is now moving in an elliptical orbit around the earth, with a period of approximately four months and twelve days. The astronomer states that, at the time of the asteroid's nearest approach to us, it will be a conspicuous object--its apparent diameter being nearly one-half that of the moon. Professor Hooker and his associates have thus not only averted the impending catastrophe but have presented the earth with a new moon as a lasting monument to the boldest enterprise ever conceived by the human brain. There were several columns more, but Bentham did not proceed further. "Gee whiz!" he exploded. "He's really done it!" "Tush!" returned Judson. "You don't _believe_ that, do you? No matter how big a fool you are, you don't honestly suppose anyone can go sailin' around in the air blowin' comets--I mean ass-eroids--out of their orbits, like Buffalo Bill shootin' glass balls?" "Look here, Judson," shrieked Tassifer: "You keep a civil tongue in your head! I know all about that flying machine; I've been in it, and, what's more, my niece Rhoda--" He stopped unexpectedly. "What about your niece?" inquired Judson. "Nothing! Why, _you_ saw the machine that day on the golf-course--don't you remember? That was Hooker."