"Yes, yes," he answered, "and I am glad to find the inhabitants are of
such a lively disposition."

"Oh, who can help being light-hearted," I rejoined, "when one's body is so
light?"

For as soon as we left our car we began to have the queerest sensations of
lightness. We felt as if we were standing on springs, which the least
motion would set off and up we would go toward the sky. Everything we
handled had but a small fraction of the weight it would possess on the
earth, and our great air-condensing machines we carried about with ease.
But however high we might jump we always returned to the ground, and
whether we were on top of the moon or on the bottom of it, it was pretty
certain that we could not fall off, any more than we could have fallen off
the earth before we voluntarily but so rashly left it.

My exhilaration of spirit did not last, for I could not help thinking of
our condition. The law of gravitation surely held us, although with less
force than we had been accustomed to, on account of the smaller size of
the moon; and how were we to get away from it?

I again appealed to my companion.

"I do not like the idea of spending the rest of our lives on the moon,
Doctor, but can you tell me how we are to prevent it? Can we ever get back
within the earth's attraction again?"

"I have been pondering the subject myself," he replied, "and I think I can
give you some hope of seeing home once more. If our old measurements of
the moon are correct, and if we are, as I suppose, somewhere near the