Page:Weird Tales Volume 8 Number 1 (1926-07).djvu/142

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to us with a wry smile on his lips and a twinkle in his eyes.

"Just take a peep, boys, and tell me what you see." He strove in vain to conceal his amusement.

We both agreed that we saw a rather reddish star.

"That 'reddish star'," said Oscar, impressively, "is our old friend Mars, and he is revolving in an orbit between us and the sun!"

Ed and I looked at each other speechlessly for some seconds; then without a word Ed dropped on his knees before me in something of the fashion of an Arab bowing toward Mecca.

"What's the big idea?" I asked, not a little frightened, for I wondered if the confinement of the years had crazed him.

Oscar was laughing so that he had to hold on to the telescope for support, so I concluded there was nothing very radically amiss in the situation.

"I am worshiping a god," said Ed, "for so I would call anyone who can move the planets about so that they line up in accordance with his conceptions of the way they ought to do."

"I'd like to take the credit," I laughed, then more seriously, "but a higher authority than mine has charge of the movements of the planets."

"Well, it certainly is uncanny how you have your way in everything," grumbled Ed.

HERE is little more to tell. The world soon adjusted itself to its new environment. People became accustomed to seeing the sun rise in the West and set in the East.

Vera was ineffably delighted with the new system of time which was necessitated by the increased orbit of