"Why, it's—it's—THAT, you know!" said Toto.
"Exactly!" said Coon. "What a clear way you have of putting things, to be sure!"
"Well," cried Toto, laughing, "I'm afraid I cannot put it very clearly, because I don't know just exactly what comets are, myself. But they are heavenly bodies, and they come and go in the sky, with tails; and sometimes you don't see one again for a thousand years; and though you don't see them move, they are really going like lightning all the time."
Coon and Cracker looked at each other, as if they feared that their companion was losing his wits.
"Have they four legs?" asked Cracker. "And what do they live on?"
"They have no legs," replied Toto, "nothing but heads and tails; and I don't believe they live on anything, unless," he added, with a twinkle in his eye, "they get milk from the milky way."
The raccoon looked hard at Toto, and then equally hard at the comet, which for its part spread its shining tail among the constellations, and took no notice whatever of him.
"Can't you give us a little more of this precious information?" he said with a sneer. "It is so valuable, you know, and we are so likely to believe it, Cracker and I, being two greenhorns, as you seem to think."
Toto flushed, and his brow clouded for an instant, for Coon could be so very disagreeable when he tried; but the next moment he threw back his head and laughed merrily.