ect's dhrawin' iv a flat-buildin', an'
p'int out how 't was accumylated.

"First 't was a mere squdge in which ne'er a livin' thing cud be
found. This peryod lasted a few millyion years, an' thin th' mush
caked an' become buildin'-materyal, an' threes grew out iv th'
buildin'-materyal an' fell down an' become coal. Thin th' wather
come--but where it come fr'm I don't know, f'r they was no God at
th' time--an' covered th' earth, an' thin th' wather evaporated an'
left little p'ints iv land shtickin' up with ready-made men an'
women occypyin' thim, an' at that moment th' Bible begun. Ye might
say we 're livin' on th' roof iv a flat, with all th' apartmints
beneath us occypied be th' bones iv submarine monsthers an' other
tinants.

"Lasteways that's what Hogan tells me, but I don't believe a wurrud
he says. Most iv th' people iv this wurruld is a come-on f'r
science, but I'm not. Ye can't con-vince me, me boy, that a man
who's so near-sighted he can't read th' sign on a cable-car knows
anny more about th' formation iv th' earth thin Father Kelly. I
believe th' wurruld is flat, not round; that th' sun moves an' is
about th' size iv a pie-plate in th' mornin' an' a car-wheel at
noon; an' it 's no proof to me that because a pro-fissor who 's
peekin' through a chube all night says th' stars ar-re millyions
iv miles away an' each is bigger thin this wurruld, that they 're
bigger thin they look, or much higher thin th' top iv th' shot-tower.
I've been up tin thousand feet on a mountain, an' they seemed so
near that I kept whiskin' thim off me nose as I lay there on me
back, but they wasn't anny larger thin they were on th' sthreet-level.
I believe what I see an' some iv th' things I'm told, if they 've
been told often, an' thim facts iv science has not been hung long
enough to be digistible." But, annyhow, they say that man first
begun writin' whin he had to hammer out his novels an' pomes on a
piece iv rock, an' th' hammer has been th' imblim iv lithrachoor
iver since. Thin he painted it on skins, hince th' publisher;
thin he played it an' danced it an' croshayed it till 't was
discovered that ink an' pa-aper wud projooce wurruds, an' thin th'
printin'-press was invinted. Gunpowdher was invinted th' same
time, an' 't is a question I've often heerd discussed which has
done more to ilivate th' human race. A joke.

Th' longer th' wurruld lasts th' more books does be comin' out.
Day be day I r-read in th' pa-apers an