"
"But it must be very hot there."
"It is pretty hot _here_," said the doctor shrugging his
shoulders,--"ninety five millions of miles away; so I do not see that we
can avoid your conclusion."
"How much is ninety five millions?"
"I am sure I don't know," said Dr. Sandford gravely. "After I have gone
as far as a million or so, I get tired."
"But I do not know much about arithmetic," said Daisy humbly. "Mamma has
not wanted me to study. I don't know how much one million is."
"Arithmetic does not help one on a journey, Miss Daisy," said the doctor
pleasantly. "Counting the miles did not comfort me to-day. But I can
tell you this. If you and I were to set off on a railway train, straight
for the sun, and go at the rate of thirty-two miles an hour,--you know
that is pretty fast travelling?"
"How fast do we go on the cars from here to New York?"
"Thirty miles an hour."
"Now I know," said Daisy.
"If we were to set off and go straight to the sun at that rate of speed,
keeping it up night and day, it would take us--how long do you guess? It
would take us three hundred years and more; nearly three hundred and
fifty years, to get there.
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