Well, some things they said WAS funny,--yes,
and mighty witty too, I ain't denying that,--but all the same it warn't
fair nor brave, all them people pitching on one, and they so glib and
sharp, and him without any gift of talk to answer back with. But, good
land! what did he want to sass back for? You see, it couldn't do him no
good, and it was just nuts for them. They HAD him, you know. But that
was his way. I reckon he couldn't help it; he was made so, I judge. He
was a good enough sort of cretur, and hadn't no harm in him, and was
just a genius, as the papers said, which wasn't his fault. We can't all
be sound: we've got to be the way we're made. As near as I can make out,
geniuses think they know it all, and so they won't take people's advice,
but always go their own way, which makes everybody forsake them and
despise them, and that is perfectly natural. If they was humbler, and
listened and tried to learn, it would be better for them.

The part the professor was in was like a boat, and was big and roomy,
and had water-tight lockers around the inside to keep all sorts of
things in, and a body could sit on them, and make beds on them, too.
We went aboard, and there was twenty people there, snooping around
and examining, and old Nat Parsons was there, too. The professor kept
fussing around getting ready, and the people went ashore, drifting out
one at a time, and old Nat he was the last. Of course it wouldn't do to
let him go out behind US. We mustn't budge till he was gone, so we could
be last ourselves.

But he was gone now, so it was time for us to follow. I heard a big
shout, and turned around--the city was dropping from under us like a
shot! It made me sick all through, I was so scared. Jim turned gray and
couldn't say a word, and Tom didn't say nothing, but looked excited. The
city went on dropping down, and down, and down; but we didn't seem to be
doing nothing but just hang in the air and stand still. The houses got
smaller and smaller, and the city pulled itself together, closer
and closer, and the men and wagons got to looking like ants and bugs
crawling around, and the streets like threads and cracks; and then it
all kind of melted together, and there wasn't any city any more it was
only a big scar on the earth, and it seemed to me a body could see up
the river and down the river about a thousand miles, though of course it
wasn't so much. By and by the earth was a ball--just a round ball, of
a dull color,