"If we were to set off and go straight to the sun at that rate of speed, keeping it up night and day, it would take us how long do you guess? It would take us three hundred years and more; nearly three hundred and fifty years, to get there."
"I cannot imagine travelling so long," said Daisy, gravely. At which Dr. Sandford laughed; the first time Daisy had ever heard him do such a thing. It was a low, mellow laugh now; and she rather enjoyed it.
"I should like to know what a million is," she observed.
"Ten hundred thousand."
"And how many million miles did you say the sun is?"
"Ninety-five millions of miles away."
Daisy lay thinking about it.
"Can you imagine travelling faster? And then we need not be so long on the journey," said Dr. Sandford. "If we were to go as fast as a cannon ball, it would take us about seven years not quite so much to get to the sun."
"How fast does a cannon ball go?"
"Fifty times as fast as a railway train."