"Suppose that Clarence Hastings should be walking home about twelve o'clock at night. It would then be broad daylight in the dominions of his Majesty the Brother of the Sun and the Cousin of the Moon, and the Celestials would be picking tea-leaves or parboiling puppies. Suppose, I say, that Clarence should be walking home after having spent the last four or five hours in the delightful society of the lovely Claribel. Now, it is highly probable that Clarence would be gazing upward at the lunar orb and meditating a sonnet."
"Nay; Harry Vincent is the sonneteer. I verily believe that he has dedicated a little poem of fourteen lines to nearly every visible star in the heavens, and solemnly swears in the most mellifluous verses that none of them are half so bright as the eyes of the bewitching Imogen."
"Let it be Harry Vincent, then, who is walking home and making his astronomical observations with a view to the disparagement of the stars, when brought in comparison with the optical orbs of his lady-love. We will suppose that he is gazing at yonder star which is now winking at us, as if it heard every word of our conversation. He would take but little heed to his footsteps while his gaze was fixed upon the star and his thoughts were wandering away to Imogen. As he exclaimed, 'Oh, Imogen! thine eyes exceed in brightness all the glittering gems that bespangle the garments of the glorious night,' he would tumble into the well."
"Ha, ha, ha! Good-by, Harry."
"Would he not rapidly descend?"
"I should think that he would."
"Would he stop falling when there was no bottom to the well?"
"It is impossible to suppose that he would."
"Then he would fall entirely through the well and would be falling upward when he issued from the other end, and our worthy antipodes, the tea-pickers, would open their eyes in amazement, and their pig-tails would stand erect when they beheld the handsome Harry Vincent falling upward, and heard him loudly exclaiming, 'Oh, Imogen!' and he would continue to fall upward until he was intercepted by the earth's satellite and became the guest of the man in the moon."