The door of the Comet House was open. In the great court-yard stood
hundreds of comets, of all sizes and shapes. Some were puffing and
blowing, and arranging their tails, all ready to start; others
had just come in, and looked shabby and forlorn after their long
journeyings, their tails drooping disconsolately; while others still
were switched off on side-tracks, where the tinker and the tailor were
attending to their wants, and setting them to rights. In the midst
of all stood the Comet Master, with his hands behind him, holding a
very long stick with a very sharp point. The comets knew just how the
point of that stick felt, for they were prodded with it whenever they
misbehaved themselves; accordingly, they all remained very quiet,
while he gave his orders for the day.
In a distant corner of the court-yard lay an old comet, with his tail
comfortably curled up around him. He was too old to go out, so he
enjoyed himself at home in a quiet way. Beside him stood a very young
comet, with a very short tail. He was quivering with excitement, and
occasionally cast sharp impatient glances at the Comet Master.
"Will he _never_ call me?" he exclaimed, but in an undertone, so that
only his companion could hear. "He knows I am dying to go out, and
for that very reason he pays no attention to me. I dare not leave my
place, for you know what he is."
"Ah!" said the old comet, slowly, "if you had been out as often as I
have, you would not be in such a hurry. Hot, tiresome work, _I_ call
it. And what does it all amount to?"
"Ay, that's the point!" exclaimed the young comet. "What _does_ it
all amount to? That is what I am determined to find out. I cannot
understand your going on, travelling and travelling, and never
finding out why you do it. _I_ shall find out, you may be very sure,
before I have finished my first journey."
"Better not! better not!" answered the old comet. "You'll only get into
trouble. Nobody knows except the Comet Master and the Sun. The Master
would cut you up into inch pieces if you asked him, and the Sun--"
"Well, what about the Sun?" asked the young comet, eagerly.
"Short-tailed Comet No. 73!" rang suddenly, clear and sharp, through
the court-yard.
The young comet started as if he had been shot, and in three bounds he
stood before the Comet Master, who looked fixedly at him.
"You have never been out before," said the Master.
"No, sir!" replied No. 73; and he knew better than to add another word.
"You will go out now," said the Comet Master. "You will travel for
thirteen weeks and three days, and will then return. You will avoid
the neighborhood of the Sun, the Earth, and the planet Bungo. You
will turn to the left on meeting other comets, and you are not allowed
to speak to meteors. These are your orders. Go!"
At the word, the comet shot out of the gate and off into space, his
short tail bobbing as he went.
Ah! here was something worth living for. No longer shut up in that
tiresome court-yard, waiting for one's tail to grow, but out in the
free, open, boundless realm of space, with leave to shoot about here
and there and everywhere--well, _nearly_ everywhere--for thirteen
whole weeks! Ah, what a glorious prospect! How swiftly he moved! How
well his tail looked, even though it was still rather short! What a
fine fellow he was, altogether!
For two or three weeks our comet was the happiest creature in all
space; too happy to think of anything except the joy of frisking
about. But by-and-by he began to wonder about things, and that is
always dangerous for a comet.
"I wonder, now," he said, "why I may not go near the planet Bungo.
I have always heard that he was the most interesting of all the
planets. And the Sun! how I _should_ like to know a little more
about the Sun! And, by the way, that reminds me that all this time I
have never found out _why_ I am travelling. It shows how I have been
enjoying myself, that I have forgotten it so long; but now I must
certainly make a point of finding out. Hello! there comes Long-Tail
No. 45. I mean to ask him."
So he turned out to the left, and waited till No. 45 came along. The
latter was a middle-aged comet, very large, and with an uncommonly
long tail,--quite preposterously long, our little No. 73 thought, as
he shook his own tail and tried to make as much of it as possible.
"Good morning, Mr. Long-Tail!" he said as soon as the other was within
speaking distance. "Would you be so very good as to tell me what you
are travelling for?"
"For six months," answered No. 45 with a puff and a snort. "Started a
month ago; five months still to go."
"Oh, I don't mean that!" exclaimed Short-Tail No. 73. "I mean _why_
are you travelling at all?"
"Comet Master sent me!" replied No. 45, briefly.
"But what for?" persisted the little comet. "What is it all about?
What good does it do? _Why_ do we travel for weeks and months and
years? That's what I want to find out."
"Don't know, I'm sure!" said the elder, still more shortly. "What's
more, don't care!"
The little comet fairly shook with amazement and indignation. "You
don't care!" he cried. "Is it possible? And how long, may I ask, have
you been travelling hither and thither through space, without knowing
or caring why?"
"Long enough to learn not to ask stupid questions!" answered Long-Tail
No. 45. "Good morning to you!"
And without another word he was off, with his preposterously long tail
spreading itself like a luminous fan behind him. The little comet
looked after him for some time in silence. At last he said:--
"Well, _I_ call that simply _disgusting_! An ignorant, narrow-minded
old--"
"Hello, cousin!" called a clear merry voice just behind him. "How
goes it with you? Shall we travel together? Our roads seem to go in
the same direction."
The comet turned and saw a bright and sparkling meteor. "I--I--must
not speak to you!" said No. 73, confusedly.
"Not speak to me!" exclaimed the meteor, laughing. "Why, what's the
matter? What have I done? I never saw you before in my life."
"N-nothing that I know of," answered No. 73, still more confused.
"Then why mustn't you speak to me?" persisted the meteor, giving a
little skip and jump. "Eh? tell me that, will you? _Why_ mustn't you?"
"I--don't--know!" answered the little comet, slowly, for he was
ashamed to say boldly, as he ought to have done, that it was against
the orders of the Comet Master.
"Oh, gammon!" cried the meteor, with another skip. "_I_ know! Comet
Master, eh? But a fine high-spirited young fellow like you isn't going
to be afraid of that old tyrant. Come along, I say! If there were any
_real reason_ why you should not speak to me--"
"That's just what I say," interrupted the comet, eagerly. "What IS the
reason? Why don't they tell it to me?"
"'Cause there isn't any!" rejoined the meteor. "Come along!"
After a little more hesitation, the comet yielded, and the two frisked
merrily along, side by side. As they went, No. 73 confided all his
vexations to his new friend, who sympathized warmly with him, and
spoke in most disrespectful terms of the Comet Master.
"A pretty sort of person to dictate to you, when he hasn't the
smallest sign of a tail himself! I wouldn't submit to it!" cried the
meteor. "As to the other orders, some of them are not so bad. Of
course, nobody would want to go near that stupid, poky Earth, if he
could possibly help it; and the planet Bungo is--ah--is not a very
nice planet, I believe." [The fact is, the planet Bungo contains
a large reform-school for unruly meteors, but our friend made no
mention of that.] "But as for the Sun,--the bright, jolly, delightful
Sun,--why, I am going to take a nearer look at him myself. Come on! We
will go together, in spite of the Comet Master."
Again the little comet hesitated and demurred; but after all, he had
already broken one rule, and why not another? He would be punished
in any case, and he might as well get all the pleasure he could.
Reasoning thus, he yielded once more to the persuasions of the meteor,
and together they shot through the great space-world, taking their way
straight toward the Sun.
When the Sun saw them coming, he smiled and seemed much pleased. He
stirred his fire, and shook his shining locks, and blazed brighter and
brighter, hotter and hotter. The heat seemed to have a strange effect
on the comet, for he began to go faster and faster.
"Hold on!" said the meteor. "Why are you hurrying so? I cannot keep up
with you."
"I cannot stop myself!" cried No. 73. "Something is drawing me
forward, faster and faster!"
On he went at a terrible rate, the meteor following as best he might.
Several planets that he passed shouted to him in warning tones, but
he could not hear what they said. The Sun stirred his fire again, and
blazed brighter and brighter, hotter and hotter; and onward rushed the
wretched little comet, faster and faster, faster and faster!
"Catch hold of my tail and stop me!" he shrieked to the meteor. "I am
shrivelling, burning up, in this fearful heat! Stop me, for pity's
sake!"
But the meteor was already far behind, and had stopped short to watch
his companion's headlong progress. And now,--ah, me!--now the Sun
opened his huge fiery mouth. The comet made one desperate effort to
stop himself, but it was in vain. An awful, headlong plunge through
the intervening space; a hissing and crackling; a shriek,--and the
fiery jaws had closed on Short-Tail No. 73 forever!
"Dear me!" said the meteor. "How very shocking! I quite forgot that
the Sun ate comets. I must be off, or I shall get an æon in the
Reform School for this. I am really very sorry, for he was a nice
little comet!"
And away frisked the meteor, and soon forgot all about it.
But in the great court-yard in front of the Comet House, the Master
took a piece of chalk, and crossed out No. 73 from the list of
short-tailed comets on the slate that hangs on the door. Then he
called out, "No. 1 Express, come forward!" and the swiftest of all the
comets stood before him, brilliant and beautiful, with a bewildering
magnificence of tail. The Comet Master spoke sharply and decidedly, as
usual, but not unkindly.
"No. 73, Short-Tail," he said, "has disobeyed orders, and has in
consequence been devoured by the Sun."
Here there was a great sensation among the comets.
"No. 1," continued the Master, "you will start immediately, and travel
until you find a runaway meteor, with a red face and blue hair. You
are permitted to make inquiries of respectable bodies, such as planets
or satellites. When found, you will arrest him and take him to the
planet Bungo. My compliments to the Meteor Keeper, and I shall be
obliged if he will give this meteor two æons in the Reform School. I
trust," he continued, turning to the assembled comets, "that this will
be a lesson to all of you!"
And I believe it was.