Saying this, he breathed a long breath and shot a flame fifty feet from his mouth. The brimstone made Betsy cough, but she remembered about the onions and said nothing.
They had no idea how far they had gone through the center of the earth, nor when to expect the trip to end. At one time the little girl remarked:
“I wonder when we’ll reach the bottom of this hole. And isn’t it funny, Shaggy Man, that what is the bottom to us now, was the top when we fell the other way?”
“What puzzles me,” said Files, “is that we are able to fall both ways.”
“That,” announced Tik-Tok, “is be-cause the world is round.”
“Exactly,” responded Shaggy. "The machinery in your head is in fine working order, Tik-Tok. You know, Betsy, that there is such a thing as the Attraction of Gravitation, which draws everything toward the center of the earth. That is why we fall out of bed, and why everything clings to the surface of the earth."
“Then why doesn’t everything go on down to the center of the earth?” inquired the little girl.
“I was afraid you were going to ask me that,” replied Shaggy in a sad tone. “The reason, my dear, is that the earth is so solid that other solid things can’t get through it. But when there’s a hole, as there is in this case, we drop right down to the center of the world.”
“Why don’t we stop there?” asked Betsy.
“Because we go so fast that we acquire speed enough to carry us right up to the other end.”