“Why, why, yes,” said the first man, surprised into confusion.
“And can you see the spokes of a automobile wheel when it’s going past a hundred miles a hour?”
The first man thought a moment. “Why, why, no,” he said finally.
Tubby lowered his forefinger. “Then that proves it ain’t so,” he declared triumphantly. “Nor you couldn’t see a bullet if I shot it past your nose, could you?”
“You couldn’t, Jake,” the second man put in.
“No, you couldn’t,” said Tubby. “Nor you couldn’t see light if it went that fast neither. Ain’t I right? Could you?”
“He’s right, Jake,” said the second man.
Tubby sat down.
“Well, he said,” the first man resumed unabashed—“he said as how light travels one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles in a second. And furthermore, and in addition, he said as how some of the stars were so far away that it takes the light hundreds and hundreds of years just getting here from them.”
“It was all in the movie,” said the second man wearily. “‘The Wonders of Light’—I remember it.”