“The worlds He has saved are like to the gates of heaven in number—none can count them. What astronomical system is your world in?—perhaps that may assist.”
“It’s the one that has the sun in it—and the moon—and Mars”—he shook his head at each name—hadn’t ever heard of them, you see—“and Neptune—and Uranus—and Jupiter—”
“Hold on!” says he—“hold on a minute! Jupiter . . . Jupiter . . . Seems to me we had a man from there eight or nine hundred years ago—but people from that system very seldom enter by this gate.” All of a sudden he begun to look me so straight in the eye that I thought he was going to bore through me. Then he says, very deliberate, “Did you come straight here from your system?”
“Yes, sir,” I says—but I blushed the least little bit in the world when I said it.
He looked at me very stern, and says—
“That is not true; and this is not the place for prevarication. You wandered from your course. How did that happen?”
Says I, blushing again—
“I’m sorry, and I take back what I said, and confess. I raced a little with a comet one day—only just the least little bit—only the tiniest lit—”
“So—so,” says he—and without any sugar in his voice to speak of.
I went on, and says—