“The worlds He has saved are like to the gates of heaven in number—none
can count them. What astronomical system is your world in?—perhaps that
may assist.”
“It’s the one that has the sun in it—and the moon—and Mars”—he shook his
head at each name—hadn’t ever heard of them, you see—“and Neptune—and
Uranus—and Jupiter—”
“Hold on!” says he—“hold on a minute! Jupiter . . . Jupiter . . . Seems
to me we had a man from there eight or nine hundred years ago—but people
from that system very seldom enter by this gate.” All of a sudden he
begun to look me so straight in the eye that I thought he was going to
bore through me. Then he says, very deliberate, “Did you come _straight
here_ from your system?”
“Yes, sir,” I says—but I blushed the least little bit in the world when I
said it.