sailed along his coast for a little upwards of a hundred and fiftymillion miles, and then I could see by the shape of him that Ihadn't even got up to his waistband yet. Why, Peters, WE don'tknow anything about comets, down here. If you want to see cometsthat ARE comets, you've got to go outside of our solar system--where there's room for them, you understand. My friend, I've seencomets out there that couldn't even lay down inside the ORBITS of

swinging along at a good round gait, everything taut and trim, andthe wind in my favor--I judged I was going about a million miles aminute--it might have been more, it couldn't have been less--when Iflushed a most uncommonly big one about three points off mystarboard bow. By his stern lights I judged he was bearing aboutnortheast-and-by-north-half-east. Well, it was so near my course