short contest. Centrifugal and centripetal fought for the mastery, and
the latter was victorious. The publisher was at home. The novel was
accepted, and the Philosopher started to rejoin his comrades lost in
the boundless tracts of space.

CHAPTER IV.

"My faith," said Lord JOHN, "I am getting tired of this. Shall we
never reach the Sun?"

"Courage, my friend," was the well-known reply of the brave little
Doctor. "We deviated from our course one hair's-breadth on the twelfth
day. This is the fortieth day, and by the formula for the precession
of the equinoxes, squared by the parallelogram of an ellipsoidal
bath-bun fresh from the glass cylinder of a refreshment bar, we find
that we are now travelling in a perpetual circle at a distance of one
billion marine gasmeters from the Sun. I have now accounted for the
milk in the cocoa-nut."

"But not," said the Philosopher, as he popped up through a concealed
trap-door, "for the hair outside. That remains for another volume."
With that, he rang a gong. The iceberg splintered into a thousand
pieces. The voyagers were each hurled violently down into their
respective countries, where a savage public was waiting to devour
them.

* * * * *

TOLSTOI ON TOBACCO.