balance with which it was
proposed to weigh Flathootly. One end of it was fastened to the mast,
and to the hook hanging from the other end the master-at-arms secured
himself. The hand on the dial plate moved a certain distance and
stopped at seventeen pounds. The expression on the Irishman's face was
something awful to behold.

"Does this machine tell the thruth?" he inquired in a tearful voice.

We assured him it was absolutely correct. He only weighed seventeen
pounds.

"Oh, howly Mother of Mercy!" yelled Flathootly. "Consumption has me by
the back of the neck. I've lost a hundred and sixty pounds in three
days. Oh, sir, for the love of heaven, take me back to me mother. I'm
kilt entoirely."

It was some time before Flathootly could understand that his lightness
of weight was due to the lesser-sized world he was continually
arriving upon, together with centrifugal gravity, and that we all
suffered from his affliction of being each "less than half a man" as
he termed it. The weighing of the weights wherewith he had weighed
himself proved conclusively that the depreciation in gravity applied
equally to everything around us.

The extreme lightness of our bodies, and the fact that our muscles had
been used to move about ten times our then weight, was the cause of
our wonderful buoyancy.

The sailors began leaping from the ship to a large rock that rose out
of the water about half a mile off. Their agility was marvellous, and
Flathootly covered himself with glory in leaping over the ship
hundreds of feet in the air and alighting on the same spot on deck
again.

Their officers and scientific staff remained on deck as became their
dignity, although tempted to try their agility like the sailors.

Flathootly surprised us by leaping on a yardarm and exclaiming:
"Gintlemen, I tell ye what it is, I'm no weight at all."

"How do you make that out?" said the professor.

"Well, Oi've been thinking," said he, "that, as you say, we're in the
middle of the two wurrlds. Now it stands to sense that the wan wurrld,
I mane the sun up there, is pullin' us up an' the t'other wurrld is
pullin' us down, an' as both wurrlds is pulling aqually, why av corse
we don't amount to no weight at all. How could I turn fifteen
summersaults at wance if I was any weight? That shows yer weighing
machine is all wrang again."

"How can you stand on the deck if you are no weight?" inquired the
professor.

"Why, I'm only pressing me feet on the