standing should stultify himself by taking seriously such balderdash as
this. I tell you the thing is absurd."

"And I tell you, _you_ are absurd to say so!" retorted Professor
Moses, losing his temper. "You've got four of the biggest telescopes in
the world under your control; why don't you order your observers to look
for this thing?"

Professor Pludder, who was a very big man, reared up his rotund form,
and, bringing his fist down upon the table with a resounding whack,
exclaimed:

"I'll do nothing so ridiculous! These bulletins have undoubtedly been
influenced by the popular excitement. There has possibly been a little
obscurity in the atmosphere--cirrus clouds, or something--and the
observers have imagined the rest. I'm not going to insult science by
encouraging the proceedings of a mountebank like Cosmo Versal. What
we've got to do is to prepare a dispatch for the press reassuring the
populace and throwing the weight of this institution on the side of
common sense and public tranquillity. Let the secretary indite such a
dispatch, and then we'll edit it and send it out."

Professor Pludder, naturally dictatorial, was sometimes a little
overbearing, but being a man of great ability, and universally respected
for his high rank in the scientific world, his colleagues usually bowed
to his decisions. On this occasion his force of character sufficed to
silence the doubters, and when the statement intended for the press had
received its final touches it contained no hint of the seeds of discord
that Cosmo Versal had sown among America's foremost savants. The next
morning it appeared in all the newspapers as follows: