“Well, old man, how goes it?” said the Comet.
“Still jogging along, old chap,” answered the Sun.
“Any news since my last round?”
“Don’t think so.”
“I suppose you know I’ve been away thirty-five millions of years?”
“What’s that, after all? You look as boyish as ever.”
The Comet showed pleasure. He prided himself on his youth, and was wont
to dress young, and talk young, and behave young. Many constellations
and nebulæ invited to guess at his age, took him for not an hour more
than two hundred million years old, whereas, in reality, he was nearly
thirty times as much.
“It’s the exercise,” he said; “nothing like it for keeping one agile
and youthful. I’ve been eighty-three trillion, seventy-six billion,
twenty-nine hundred millions of millions of quadrillions of miles since
I saw you last. I attribute my health and--ahem!--good looks entirely
to regular exercise.”
“I wish I could have a run round with you,” answered the Sun, “but I
can’t leave the System. I stroll my modest four hundred to five hundred
million miles through space every year; but, of course, it’s not enough
to do any practical good.”
“Lord! what a sedentary life!” said the Comet; “don’t you find it tell
on your liver? With your temperature, too, you ought to make yourself
take some reasonable exercise. I’m sure you’d get rid of those spots if
you did.”
“Ah, it’s jolly easy for you free-lances to talk! You have nothing to
think of but your own tail. I’m a busy planet.”
The Comet did not like this somewhat slighting allusion to his tail.
“As to that, my dear fellow, a tail fifty millions of miles long takes
some watching, I can assure you. It isn’t all beer and skittles going
at the pace I do, and keeping clear of everything and everybody. It
wants tact and a cool head, anyway.”
“Why, you wouldn’t hurt anybody if you hit ’em,” said the Sun, rather
rudely. “Everybody knows you could pack the whole of your tail into a
Gladstone bag, and still leave room for your toothbrush and a change of
linen.”
“No,” admitted the other, “I shouldn’t hurt other people, but they
might jolly well shatter me. I’m not a robust Comet, for all my
apparent physical strength. It’s a trying life, and there are dangers.
Why, you yourself, though you mean well, always singe my hair and give
me a sharp attack of fever every time I pass you. But never mind me and
my tail. How prospers it with you? How’s the System?”
“Going strong; but sometimes I am inclined to chuck the whole lot of
’em up; they’re such little plagues. Yet one can’t help feeling a bit
proud of the inhabited ones.”
“Ah! you’ve warmed some of them into life since I was last round?”
“Oh, yes. A few have quite interesting little things living on them.
Mars, for instance; they are getting fairly advanced there. Saturn has
put on frills since you were here. He found a big swarm of asteroids
which had lost their way, and now wears them like a collar. Saturn’s a
regular child of Nature.”
“How’s Venus? Lovely as ever?”
“Lovely enough, but more bother than all the rest of ’em put together.
She’ll get into trouble some of these days--there are half-a-dozen
Comets after her as it is--no self-respect, you see; so different from
Jupiter.”
“He was always your favourite.”
“No, no, I have no favourites, unless my own little Mercury may so be
called. But Jupiter has such a distinguished way with him. No folly, no
giddiness. Always the same. A thousand pities he’s got such a wretched
climate. I’m doing what I can, but I haven’t yet been able to get
anything to live on Jupiter but frogs, and a few of the lower reptiles.”
“How’s the Earth?”
“Don’t ask me--the black sheep of the System! The ingratitude of that
planet! They’ve got a little dead cinder that circles round them,
according to the laws of gravitation; and, would you believe it? they
think twice as much of that cinder as they do of me! A fact. They call
it the Moon and write poetry to it. The Earth people have, in fact,
reached a trying stage. They are growing out of childhood, but still
lie far removed from the solidity and reasoning powers proper to an
adult. They are funny, too. Here’s a bit of New Humour to take away
with you. What d’you think they believed till the last few years?”
“Sure I don’t know,” said the Comet.
“That I went round them! They thought that they were the centre of the
Universe, and that Creation circled round and round them, just in the
same way that their little pet cinder, they call the Moon, goes round
and round them!”
“Blessed if that isn’t the funniest thing I’ve heard for ten million
years!” said the Comet. “I’ll make my little corner in Space fairly
scream with that!” He was genuinely amused, and shook to such an extent
that he gave rise to considerable disturbances on a large scale.
“Look out, old man! you’re upsetting my System!” said the Sun.
“Smother your System!” yelled the Comet. “That little pill of mud and
water to think itself the centre of all things! Why don’t you smash it
or frizzle it up?”
“We must be patient. It knows somewhat better now. If it would only
be commonly grateful and realise a little of what it owed me, I would
overlook the bumptiousness. That’s natural to all small things.”
“I believe you. For sheer side, not to say impertinence, commend me to
shooting-stars. Space is full of them, and they go slogging about in
clusters, as if the Universe had been designed for nothing but their
especial amusement and convenience. Little cads! They always think it
a huge joke to go right through me like a bullet through a piece of
paper.”
“But they can’t hurt you.”
“No, not physically; it’s the moral disgrace of the thing. One feels so
powerless against the little brutes; and satire’s thrown away on ’em.”
“They get precious small change out of me or my System either,”
answered the Sun. “I burn them up in billions myself; I light my cigars
with ’em. And the Planets--they’ve all got their own atmospheres; and
when a shooting-star gets into an atmosphere, it’s done for. You ought
to cultivate an atmosphere.”
“No time,” said the Comet. “In fact, I must be off as it is. Can’t
stop! Can’t stop! Can’t stop!”
“Any news in Space?”
“Only that the Milky Way has gone sour. It’s to be called the Milky
Whey in future!”
The Sun laughed, but not heartily. He had heard the Comet make this
same joke on many previous occasions. Every thirty-five million of
years he was expected to smile at this paltry jest, and his good-nature
was breaking down under the strain.
“Eclipse me, if I’m not fairly sick of that!” said the Sun. “I really
do think he might make a new joke. It wasn’t too funny the first time
he said it; now it’s grown simply wearisome and sickening. Next time he
comes round I must really make an effort to shame him out of it. There
should be lots of other good humour knocking about in a place the size
of Space.”
Then the tail of the traveller vanished round the corner of one of the
signs of the Zodiac, and the Sun resumed his regular occupation, and
beamed upon his System as usual.
“He has got a warm heart and no pride, for he doesn’t mind what he
shines on,” thought the Comet, as he followed his lonely and terrific
way at the usual rate of progression. “Family cares are all very well,
but they do tie a heavenly body down, and frightfully increase his
responsibilities. I should never think it quite good enough myself.
No System for me! To remember what a light-hearted chap that Sun was
in the sweet old days, before he knew he had a System! Now he’s as
crusty as the Great Bear, and his outbursts of temper are horrible to
witness. No, my idea is the best; see Space, and cultivate big ideas
and avoid all family responsibilities.”
So saying, he took off his hat to a Lady Comet, and the two proceeded
arm-in-arm for a few hundred thousand miles. He told her about the
Earth and the Sun; and, though a Comet without much sense of humour,
she laughed without intermission for thirteen centuries afterwards.