“I knows noffin’ more, sir, only that I shouldn’t like to leave my old body here!” cried Bob.
“Ha! Buncham! Fi-pho—fiddle-faddlem! Thou shalt live.”
“Thanks, your Highness.” And the shepherd lifted his eyes and gazed upon his companion. The Colossus at Rhodes, towering high above the lofty gables of the aged city, was but a pigmy in comparison. Ancient, hoary Sphinx of the Egyptians, standing for countless years on the shores of Father Nile, would have seemed a thing of yesterday beside it. Nay, that primitive marvel, the figure of wood discovered in Joppa, aged five thousand years, could reckon itself an infant in proximity to this lunarian.
Save the round, full, Chinese-like face, with its accompanying tremendous mouth, and the faint outline of the human form, there was nothing further to assist description of the creature except that he was high and bulky beyond conception, and quite as transparent as a lighted lantern. The face wasn’t at all unpleasant. It beamed with such a broad, friendly, yet withal humorous, expression as it gazed down upon Bob, that the mortal found courage to address it. [[212]]
“Please, who be you, sir?”
“Me? I’m the Man in the Moon, of course,” replied the creature, smiling.
“Eh! Why, dash my old jumper, if I didn’t think as I’d seen your countenance before!” answered the old herdsman with animation. “I can tell yer, as ye comes out pretty strong sometimes on them ’ere mountains t’other side of Sydney. Why, I’ve yarded many a thousand sheep, and you’ve been a-looking at me all the while, eh?”
The Man in the Moon nodded.
“Ah, and I’ll bet you knows my old dog, Patch?”
Another nod in the affirmative.