where he was and imagined himself standing on the surface of the earth."

I was now scrutinizing the cometic spectrum very closely, being
particularly attracted by a thin, faint line, which I thought Ben had
overlooked.

"Oh, that is nothing," he explained; "that's a mere local fault arising
from conditions peculiar to the medium through which the light is
transmitted--the atmosphere of this neighborhood. It is whisky. This
other line, though, shows the faintest imaginable trace of soap; and
these uncertain, wavering ones are caused by some effluvium not in the
comet itself, but in the region beyond it. I am compelled to pronounce
it tobacco smoke. I will now tilt the instrument so as to get the
spectrum of the celestial wanderer's tail. Ah! there we have it.
Splendid!"

"Now this old well," said William, "was near a road, along which was
traveling a big and particularly hideous nigger."

"See here, Thomas," exclaimed Ben, removing the magnifying glass from
his eye and looking me earnestly in the face, "if I were to tell you
that the _coma_ of this eccentric heavenly body is really hair, as its
name implies, would you believe it?"

"No, Ben, I certainly should not."

"Well, I won't argue the matter; there are the lines--they speak for
themselves. But now that I look again, you are not entirely wrong: there
is a considerable admixture of jute, moss, and I think tallow. It
certainly is most remarkable! Sir Isaac Newton--"