no MARK TWAIN'S SKETCHES. 



" Give thanks for this stupendous thing which we have been permitted to witness. 

 — It is the Vernal Equinox!" 



There were shoutings and great rejoicings. 



"But," said the Angle-worm, uncoiling after reflection, "this is dead summer 

 time." 



" Very well," said the Turtle, " we are far from our region ; the season differs 

 with the difference of time between the two points." 



" Ah, true. True enough. But it is night. How should the sun pass in the 

 night ?" 



" In these distant regions he doubtless passes always in the night at this hour." 



" Yes, doubtless that is true. But it being night, how is it that we could see 

 him.'" 



" It is a great mystery. I grant that. But I am persuaded that the humidity of 

 the atmosphere in these remote regions is such that particles of daylight adhere to 

 the disk and it was by aid of these that we were enabled to see the sun in the dark." 



This was deemed satisfactory, and due entry was made of the decision. 



But about this moment those dreadful shriekings were heard again ; again the 

 rumbling and thundering came speeding up oiit of the night ; and once more a 

 flaming great eye flashed by and lost itself in gloom and distance. 



The camp laborers gave themselves up for lost. The savants were sorely per- 

 plexed. Here was a marvel hard to account for. They thought and they talked^ 

 they talked and they thought. — Finally the learned and aged Lord Grand-Daddy- 

 Longlegs, who had been, sitting, in deep study, with his slender limbs crossed and 

 his stemmy arms folded, said : 



" Deliver your opinions, brethren, and then I will tell my thought— for I think. 

 I have solved this problem." 



"So be it, good your lordship," piped the weak treble of the wrinkled and 

 withered Professor Woodlouse, "for we shall hear from your lordship's lips naught 

 but wisdom." — [Here the speaker threw in a mess of trite, threadbare, exasperating 

 quotations from the ancient poets and philosophers, delivering them with unction 

 in the sounding grandeurs of the original tongues, they being from the Mastodon, 

 the Dodo, and other dead languages]. " Perhaps I ought not to presume to meddle 



