"I say!" cried the little man. "But where did you get that?"

I was too tired to keep up a lie. "I got it in the moon."

I saw them stare at one another.

Look here!" said I, "I'm not going to argue now. Help me carry these

lumps of gold up to the hotel--I guess, with rests, two of you can manage

one, and I'll trail this chain thing--and I'll tell you more when I've

had some food."

"And how about that thing?"

"It won't hurt there," I said. "Anyhow--confound it!--it must stop there

now. If the tide comes up, it will float all right."

And in a state of enormous wonderment, these young men most obediently

hoisted my treasures on their shoulders, and with limbs that felt like

lead I headed a sort of procession towards that distant fragment of

"sea-front." Half-way there we were reinforced by two awe-stricken little

girls with spades, and later a lean little boy, with a penetrating sniff,

appeared. He was, I remember, wheeling a bicycle, and he accompanied us at

a distance of about a hundred yards on our right flank, and then I

suppose, gave us up as uninteresting, mounted his bicycle and rode off

over the level sands in the direction of the sphere.

233

The First Men In The Moon