"
"Oh, you did, eh? How did you get here?"
"I slid down a moonbeam."
"Indeed! Well, what were you running for?"
"A woman gave me some cold pease porridge, and it burned my mouth."
The magistrate looked at him a moment in surprise, and then he said,
"This person is evidently crazy; so take him to the lunatic asylum and
keep him there."
This would surely have been the fate of the Man had there not been
present an old astronomer who had often looked at the moon through his
telescope, and so had discovered that what was hot on earth was cold
in the moon, and what was cold here was hot there; so he began to
think the Man had told the truth. Therefore he begged the magistrate
to wait a few minutes while he looked through his telescope to see if
the Man in the Moon was there. So, as it was now night, he fetched his
telescope and looked at the Moon,--and found there was no man in it at
all!
"It seems to be true," said the astronomer, "that the Man has got out
of the Moon somehow or other. Let me look at your mouth, sir, and see
if it is really burned."
Then the Man opened his mouth, and everyone saw plainly it was burned
to a blister! Thereupon the magistrate begged his pardon for doubting
his word, and asked him what he would like to do next.
"I 'd like to get back to the Moon," said the Man, "for I do n't like
this earth of yours at all.
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