he company was tired of my talk, which seemed to them mere grunting. So
he pulled my rope, and made me dance and caper until the spectators
ached with laughter.

Happily, the next morning the Man of the Sun opened my cage and put me
on his back and carried me away.

"I have spoken to the King of the Moon," he said; "and he has commanded
that you should be taken to his court and examined by his learned
doctors."

As my companion went on four feet, he was able to travel as fast as a
racehorse, and we soon arrived at another town, where we put up at an
inn for dinner. I followed him into a magnificently furnished hall, and
a servant asked me what I would begin with.

"Some soup," I replied.

I had scarcely pronounced the words when I smelt a very succulent broth.
I rose up to look for the source of this agreeable smell; but my
companion stopped me.

"What do you want to walk away for?" said he. "Stay and finish your
soup."

"But where is the soup?" I said.

"Ah," he replied. "This is the first meal you have had on the Moon. You
see, the people here only live on the smell of food. The fine, lunar art
of cookery consists in collecting the exhalations that come from cooked
meat, and bottling them up. Then, at meal-time, the various jars are
uncorked, one after the other, until the appetites of the diners are
satisfied."

"It is, no doubt, an exquisite way of eating," I said; "but I am afraid
I shall starve on it."

"Oh, no, you will not," said he. "You will soon find that a man can
nourish himself as well by his nose as by his mouth."

And so it was. After smelling for a quarter of an hour a variety of
rich, appetising vapours, I rose up quite satisfied.

In the afternoon I was taken to the palace of the king, and examined by
the greatest men of science on the Moon. In spite of all that my friend
had said on my behalf, I was adjudged to be a mere animal, and again
shut up in a cage. The king, queen, and courtiers spent a considerable
time every day watching me, and with the help of the Man of the Sun I
soon learned to speak a little of their, music-language. This caused a
great deal of surprise. Several persons began to think that I was really
a man who had been dwarfed and weakened from want of nourishment.

But the learned doctors again examined me, and decided that, as I did
not walk on four legs, I must be a new kind of featherless parrot.
Thereupon I was given a pole to perch on, instead of a nice warm b