The moment that the last bright spot of his disk had disappeared, the eastern world was all darkness. No soft twilight in that climate smooths the transition from the warm light of day to the depth of night; but to compensate, the stars shine more brightly and come quicker upon the track of day, and in a moment a thousand beaming lights broke out in the heaven as if they were jealous that the sun had shone so long; while on the earth, too, the fire-flies kept hovering about as if the sky "rained its lesser stars upon our globe."
Men have strange presentiments sometimes, and we have a great many great instances of them in a great many great men. Now whether it was a presentiment that I should meet the Man in the Moon that evening, which made me linger out of the city, I cannot tell at this interval of time. But so it was that I did linger, and got wandering about down in the valley till the moon rose clear and mild, and weaving her silver beams with the dark blue of the sky, it became all one tissue of gentle light. Just at that moment, on a bank where the moonbeams appeared all gathered together, I saw a little old man with a dog by his side and a lantern in his hand--take him altogether, not at all unlike Diogenes.
Wherever I go I adopt the country that I happen to be in, lest at a pinch it should have nothing to say to me, not as most men do, by halves, growling like a bear all the time they do it; no, but altogether as a man does a wife, for better, for worse--laws, manners, superstitions, and prejudices. Now, had I followed this excellent custom in the present instance, I ought, in Persia, to have imagined my old man to be a Ghole instanter, or, at best, a Siltrim; but somehow forgetting a few thousand years, I could not get his likeness to Diogenes out of my head, and walking up to him, I asked him if he were looking for an honest man, adding, that if he were, I should be happy to help him, for that I wanted one too.
"No," said the old man, "I am looking for sticks."
"Sticks!" echoed I, "you will find none on this side of the valley--you must cross the stream, and amongst those bushes you will find sticks enough."
"But I cannot go out of the moonshine," said the old man.
I now began to smoke him, (as the vulgar have it.) "Ho, ho!" said I, "you are the Man in the Moon, I take it?"
"At your service," said my companion, making me a low bow.
"Well, then," I continued, "I will go and gather you a faggot, and afterwards we will have some chat together, and you shall tell me something about your habitation up there, for I have often wished to know all that is going on in it."
The Man in the Moon seemed very well pleased with the proposal. The sticks were soon gathered, and sitting on the bank together, he set the lantern down beside him whistled to his dog, which was one of those little, black, round-limbed, short-tailed curs, which seem of no earthly use but to bark at our horses' heels, and then entered into conversation without further ceremony. Indeed, ever after, in the many conversations which I have had with him, and which perhaps the malicious may term fits of lunacy, I have had reason to think of him as I did at first--namely, that he was a very shrewd, chatty old gentleman, not at all slack in showing any knowledge he possessed, and who, if he had not read much, had at least seen a good deal.