when one of the men had taken him back toward the stern to explain the
point, I found Thorwald and quietly explained to him the mental condition
of my companion.

"The doctor is all right," I said, "on every subject but one. His head
must have been injured a little in his fall, and he imagines and asserts
with positiveness that we found a young woman in the moon, the last of her
race--a ridiculous idea, is it not?"

"And did you find any inhabitants at all?" asked Thorwald.

"Certainly not. No one could live in such a place. It is indeed marvelous
how we existed long enough to get here. The doctor calls this creature of
his brain Mona, says she was a great beauty, and plainly intimates that I
was rather too attentive to her. You will see what a convincing proof this
is of his unsound condition when I tell you I am engaged to the best woman
on the earth, and so of course could not show any marked preference for
another. I have told you about the doctor so that you may pass over
unnoticed any allusion he makes to these subjects."

Thorwald thanked me and said he would be careful not to embarrass us in
the matter. And so I flattered myself that in the future Thorwald and I
would sympathize with each other in commiserating the doctor. But I
afterward learned that the doctor, about this time, had also sought an
interview with Thorwald and had confided the following secret to him:

"My friend," said he, "is a fine young fellow, but his head must have been
injured in his fall. He has entirely forgotten the best of our experience
in the moon. Queer, too, for he fell in love with the only and last
inhabitant of that globe, a beautiful, sweet-voiced maiden named Mona, who