"Well, Professor, I should not mind the distance in those circumstances," he answered jauntily.
"Perhaps you like jumping exercise too," I said. "Only fancy, M'Allister, if you wanted to jump across one of those narrower cracks! Why, if you could jump a distance of ten feet on the earth, you could jump sixty feet on the moon just as easily! Some of our athletes have jumped a length of twenty-six feet, so the same persons could with equal ease jump 156 feet on the moon! What do you think of that for a long jump?"
"Heh, Professor," he replied, looking rather bewildered, "what a jump! Why, I should think the mon was never coming down again!"
"I say, though, M'Allister, after all I am inclined to think you would not find golf on the moon altogether a pleasant game," said John.
"Why not, mon?" inquired M'Allister.
"Well," answered John, "I was thinking that if you sent your ball flying into one of those cracks which are several miles deep you would find yourself eternally 'bunkered,' for no niblick ever made would get you out of that."
M'Allister laughed so heartily at this idea of John's that we both joined in his mirth; then I recommended him to wait until we reached Mars if he wished to enjoy a game of golf, for there he would be sure to find enormous stretches of level ground.
From a coloured drawing by M. Wicks