"That is easily explained," he said. "You had got within the circle of
lunar influence, in which the Moon exerts a sort of sucking action on
the fat of the body. The same thing often happens to me. Like you, I am
a stranger on the Moon. I was born on the Sun, but, being of a roving
disposition, I like to explore one planet after another. I have
travelled a good deal in Europe, and conversed with several persons
whose names you no doubt know. I remember that I was once famous in
ancient Greece as the Demon of Socrates."

"Then you are a spirit?" I exclaimed.

"A kind of spirit," he replied. "I was one of the large company of the
Men of the Sun who used to inhabit the Earth under the names of oracles,
nymphs, woodland elves, and fairies. But we abandoned our world in the
reign of the Emperor Augustus; your people then became so gross and
stupid that we could no longer delight in their society. Since then I
have stayed on the Moon. I find its inhabitants more enlightened than
the inhabitants of the Earth."

"I don't!" I exclaimed. "Look how they treat me, as if I were a wild
beast! I am sure that if one of their men of science voyaged to the
Earth, he would be better received than I am here."

"I doubt it," said the Man of the Sun. "Your men of science would have
him killed, stuffed, and put in a glass case in a museum."


_II.--The Garb of Shame_