“N-nothing that I know of,” answered No. 73, still more confused.
“Then why mustn’t you speak to me?” persisted the meteor, giving a little skip and jump. “Eh? tell me that, will you? Why mustn’t you?”
“I—don’t—know!” answered the little comet, slowly, for he was ashamed to say boldly, as he ought to have done, that it was against the orders of the Comet Master.
“Oh, gammon!” cried the meteor, with another skip. “I know! Comet Master, eh? But a fine high-spirited young fellow like you isn’t going to be afraid of that old tyrant. Come along, I say! If there were any real reason why you should not speak to me—”
“That’s just what I say,” interrupted the comet, eagerly. “What IS the reason? Why don’t they tell it to me?”
“’Cause there isn’t any!” rejoined the meteor. “Come along!”
After a little more hesitation, the comet yielded, and the two frisked merrily along, side by side. As they went, No. 73 confided all his vexations to his new friend, who sympathized warmly with him, and spoke in most disrespectful terms of the Comet Master.
“A pretty sort of person to dictate to you, when he hasn’t the smallest sign of a tail himself! I wouldn’t submit to it!” cried the meteor. “As to the other orders, some of them are not so bad. Of course, nobody would want to go near that stupid, poky Earth, if he could possibly help it; and the planet Bungo is—ah—is not a very nice planet, I believe.” [The fact is, the planet Bungo contains a large reform-school for unruly meteors, but our friend made no mention of that.] “But as for the Sun,—the bright, jolly, delightful Sun,—why, I am going to take a nearer look at him myself. Come on! We will go together, in spite of the Comet Master.”
Again the little comet hesitated and demurred; but after all, he had already broken one rule, and why not another? He would be punished in any case, and he might as well get all the pleasure he could. Reasoning thus, he yielded once more to the persuasions of the meteor, and together they shot through the great space-world, taking their way straight toward the Sun.
When the Sun saw them coming, he smiled and seemed much pleased. He stirred his fire, and shook his shining locks, and blazed brighter and brighter, hotter and hotter. The heat seemed to have a strange effect on the comet, for he began to go faster and faster.