CHAPTER XVI. AN UNLIKELY STORY
“If the doctor,” I said, “will pardon me, I will say, in relation to the origin of meteorites, that our scientific men have held from time to time many different theories. Some have believed that they are aggregations of metallic vapors which, meeting in the atmosphere, solidify there and fall, just as watery vapors solidify and come down in the form of hailstones. Others have held that they are thrown out from the center of the earth by volcanic action; and others still that they all came from the moon when her volcanoes were active. These latter theories imply that the meteorites in immense quantities are revolving around the earth, and that occasionally they become entangled in her atmosphere and fall to the surface.
“And now, Thorwald, I am tempted to repay all your great kindness to us with an act of ingratitude, nothing less than the relation of a story.”
This rather foolhardy speech of mine made the doctor wince, and I am not sure but he began to fear that my mind was weakening in a new direction. But I had my own excuse for my action, which I felt that I could explain to him at some future time. The fact is, I was so disturbed in my mind about Mona and was anticipating so much from meeting the so called Avis, that I thought I could never sit still all the morning and listen to a dry scientific discussion. It seemed to me that I could stand it better if I could do part of the talking myself, and so I took advantage of the subject before us to propose relating an extravagant tale that I once had heard.
In contrast with the doctor’s frowns, Thorwald showed a lively appreciation and insisted that I should be heard.
“Not another word from me,” he said, “till we have had the story.”
With such encouragement, it was easy for me to proceed.
“I fear you will be disappointed,” I said, “for what I have rashly called a story is only a fancy founded on the idea that the meteorites were at some time shot out of the volcanoes of the moon. I had it from a friend of mine, whose mind is evidently more open to the notion of life in other worlds than is that of my companion here. As the story was written long before the moon came down to visit the people of the earth in their own home, the writer did not have the advantage of the discoveries made by the doctor and myself, and it is well for me that the doctor’s friend, Mona, is not here to disprove any of my statements.