"Tell me what you see, my friend."
"I see two fellows in a small room, smoking cigars and playing chess!" was the prompt reply.
"Saturn is 86,000,000 of miles from this town," continued the astronomer, "and yet the insignificant sum of ten cents has enabled this progressive young man to learn for himself that the celestial beings enjoy themselves pretty much as we do in this world. I venture to say that there is not a man in this crowd who ever knew before that the inhabitants of Saturn knew anything about chess or cigars."
Once more he wheeled the instrument round. This time it got the range of the upper storey of a tenement-house on the hill The young man had scarcely taken a glance through the tube, when he yelled out:—
"Great guns! But what planet is this?"
"You are now looking at Uranus," replied the professor. "Uranus is 97,502,304 miles distant from the earth, and yet I warrant that it doesn't appear over eighty rods away to you. Will you be kind enough, my friend, to tell this crowd what you see?"
"Give it to him! That's it! Go it old woman!" shouted the young man, slapping one leg and then the other.
"Speak up, my friend. What do you see?"
"By jove! she's got him by the hair now! Why, she'll beat him hollow!"
"Will you be kind enough, my friend, to allay the curiosity of your friends?"