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Psyche And The Pskyscraper
by
“Yonder star,” said Dabster, “is Venus, the evening star. She is 66,000,000 miles from the sun.”
“Fudge!” said Daisy, with a brief flash of spirit, “where do you think I come from–Brooklyn? Susie Price, in our store–her brother sent her a ticket to go to San Francisco–that’s only three thousand miles.”
The philosopher smiled indulgently.
“Our world,” he said, “is 91,000,000 miles from the sun. There are eighteen stars of the first magnitude that are 211,000 times further from us than the sun is. If one of them should be extinguished it would be three years before we would see its light go out. There are six thousand stars of the sixth magnitude. It takes thirty-six years for the light of one of them to reach the earth. With an eighteen-foot telescope we can see 43,000,000 stars, including those of the thirteenth magnitude, whose light takes 2,700 years to reach us. Each of these stars–“
“You’re lyin’,” cried Daisy, angrily. “You’re tryin’ to scare me. And you have; I want to go down!”
She stamped her foot.
“Arcturus–” began the philosopher, soothingly, but he was interrupted by a demonstration out of the vastness of the nature that he was endeavoring to portray with his memory instead of his heart. For to the heart-expounder of nature the stars were set in the firmament expressly to give soft light to lovers wandering happily beneath them; and if you stand tiptoe some September night with your sweetheart on your arm you can almost touch them with your hand. Three years for their light to reach us, indeed!
Out of the west leaped a meteor, lighting the roof of the skyscraper almost to midday. Its fiery parabola was limned against the sky toward the east. It hissed as it went, and Daisy screamed.
“Take me down,” she cried, vehemently, “you–you mental arithmetic!”
Dabster got her to the elevator, and inside of it. She was wild- eyed, and she shuddered when the express made its debilitating drop.
Outside the revolving door of the skyscraper the philosopher lost her. She vanished; and he stood, bewildered, without figures or statistics to aid him.
Joe had a lull in trade, and by squirming among his stock succeeded in lighting a cigarette and getting one cold foot against the attenuated stove.
The door was burst open, and Daisy, laughing, crying, scattering fruit and candies, tumbled into his arms.
“Oh, Joe, I’ve been up on the skyscraper. Ain’t it cozy and warm and homelike in here! I’m ready for you, Joe, whenever you want me.”