“Follow me, Sir John.”
“And if I do not?”
“Then I might be constrained to drill through the moon before you do.”
“In that case, sir, I am at your service.”
“Your manservant may accompany us.”
Lund, the bald-headed man, and Tom Snipe left the lecture hall, and the three of them made their way through the gaslit streets of London. They walked quite a distance.
“If you please, sir,” Tom Snipe said to Lund, “if our way is to be as long as this gentleman is tall, then the laws of friction dictate that we will wear down the soles of our shoes to nothing.”
The two gentlemen gave Tom Snipe’s words ten minutes’ thought, and, finding them not without wit, laughed out loud.
“With whom, may I ask, do I have the honor of sharing a good laugh?” Lund asked the bald-headed gentleman.
“You have the honor of walking, laughing, and conversing with a member of every geographical, archaeological, and ethnographical society in the world, doctor of all past and present fields of science, member of the Moscow Arts Circle, honorary trustee of the Southampton School of Bovine Obstetrics, subscriber to The Illustrated Devil, professor of greenish-yellow wizardry and introductory gastronomy at the future University of New Zealand, and director of the Anonymous Observatory, William Dunderheadus. I, sir, am taking you to . . .”—John Lund and Tom Snipe bent their knees in reverence before the great man of whom they had heard so much, and bowed respectfully—“I am taking you, sir, to my observatory, which is located twenty miles from here. I, sir, need a partner for an enterprise, the meaning of which you will only be able to grasp using both hemispheres of your brain. My choice fell upon you. But after a forty-hour talk, I doubt that you will be in a condition to enter any kind of conversation, and I, sir, love nothing more than my telescope and lasting silence. Your manservant’s tongue, I hope, will follow your command. Long live speechlessness! I am taking you to . . . I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not in the least, sir. My only regret is that we are not fast walkers and have no soles on our shoes, since they cost money, and—”
“I shall buy you new shoes.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Readers who wish to familiarize themselves further with Dr. Dunderheadus can turn to his remarkable study, “Did the Moon Exist Before the Great Flood, and if so, why did it not ink?” Along with this study was also published a banned pamphlet written a year before his death: “How to Crush the Universe to Powder Without Perishing.” These works characterize, like no other, this most remarkable of men. Among other things he describes how he lived for whole time in the Australian swamps, where he survived on crabs, mud, and crocodile eggs, and in the two years did not once see fire. While there, he invented a microscope just like the ones we have, and discovered the bones of a fish belonging to the Pisces family. Returning from his long journey, he settled some miles outside London and dedicated himself entirely to astronomy. Being a convinced misogynist (he had been married three times, as a consequence of which he sported three pairs of formidable horns), and not wanting to be the butt of every joke, he withdrew to live the life of an ascetic. As he possessed a fine, diplomatic intellect, he was clever enough to make certain that his observatory and astronomical findings were known to him alone. Regrettably, and to the misfortune of all true-blooded Englishmen, this great man did not live on into our times. He quietly passed away last year, swallowed by three crocodiles while swimming in the Nile.
CHAPTER III
Mysterious Spots
In the observatory to which Dr. Dunderheadus took Lund and Old Tom Snipe—(there follows an excruciatingly long and boring description of the observatory, which the translator has refrained from rendering with a view to saving space and time)—stood the telescope the doctor had perfected. Lund walked over to it, and began to look at the moon.
“And what do you see, sir?”
“The moon, sir.”
“But what do you see next to the moon?”
“I have the honor of seeing the moon and nothing but.”
“But can’t you see the moving white spots next to the moon?”
“By Jove, sir! Call me an ass if I do not see the spots you speak of! What manner of spots are they?”
“They are spots only visible through my telescope. Enough, leave the telescope. Sir John, I wish to find out, nay, must find out what those spots are! I will be there soon enough! I shall travel to them, and you must accompany me!”
“Hurrah! Long live the spots!” Sir John and Old Snipe called out in unison.
CHAPTER IV
A Rumpus in the Skies
A half hour later Dr. Dunderheadus, Sir John Lund, and Tom Snipe were already flying toward the mysterious spots in eighteen balloons. They were sitting in a hermetically sealed cube filled with condensed air and chemicals for the production of oxygen.10 This grandiose flight, the likes of which no man ever ventured on, was undertaken on the thirteenth of March, 1870. A southwesterly wind was blowing. The magnetic needle was pointing NWW. (There follows an extremely boring description of the cube and the eighteen balloons.) A deep silence reigned in the cube. The two gentlemen sat wrapped in their coats, smoking cigars, while Tom Snipe lay stretched out on the floor, sleeping as if he were at home in his bed. The thermometer11 indicated that the temperature was below the freezing-point. During the first twenty hours not a word was spoken, and nothing particular happened. The balloons entered the cloud zone, a number of lightning bolts chasing but not reaching them as they were British. On the third day, John Lund fell ill with diphtheria while Tom Snipe suffered an attack of bile. The cube collided with an asteroid and received a dreadful thump. The thermometer indicated a temperature of minus seventy-six degrees centigrade.
“How are you keeping, sir?” Dr. Dunderheadus finally asked Lund on the fifth day, breaking the silence.
“Thank you for your concern,” Lund replied, touched by the doctor’s solicitude. “I am suffering most profusely. Where is my trusted manservant?”
“He is sitting in a corner chewing tobacco, and attempting to look like a man married to ten women at the same time.”
“Ha ha, I say, that’s a good one, Dr. Dunderheadus!”
“Thank you, sir.”
The doctor was about to shake Lund’s hand when something terrible happened. There was a great rattling and a shattering bang, the thunder of a thousand cannons, a frenzied, howling piping noise. The brass cube, having fallen into a layer of thin space, could not bear the inner pressure and exploded, its shreds hurtling into endless distances.
It was a terrible moment, the most singular in history!
Dr. Dunderheadus grabbed hold of Tom Snipe’s legs, who in turn grabbed hold of John Lund’s legs, and the three of them, with lightning speed, plummeted into endless depths. One after the other the balloons tore away, and, freed from all weight, spun in circles, exploding with deafening bangs.
“Where are we, sir?” John Lund inquired of the doctor.
“In the ethers.”
“I say, if we are in the ethers, what are we to breathe?”
“Where, Sir John, is your strength of will?”
“Gentlemen,” Tom Snipe called out, “I have the honor of informing you that for some reason we are not falling downward, but upward!”
“I see . . . Damn it all! That means we are no longer within the earth’s gravitational pull . . . That means our goal is drawing us toward it! Hurrah! Sir John, how is your health holding up?”
“Thank you for your concern. But, sir, I see the earth above us.”
“That isn’t the earth—it is one of our spots. We will crash into it any moment now.”
Bang!
CHAPTER V
Prince Meshchersky Island