“Oh, no, you will not,” said he.  “You will soon find that a man can nourish himself as well by his nose as by his mouth.”

And so it was.  After smelling for a quarter of an hour a variety of rich, appetising vapours, I rose up quite satisfied.

In the afternoon I was taken to the palace of the king, and examined by the greatest men of science on the Moon.  In spite of all that my friend had said on my behalf, I was adjudged to be a mere animal, and again shut up in a cage.  The king, queen, and courtiers spent a considerable time every day watching me, and with the help of the Man of the Sun I soon learned to speak a little of their, music-language.  This caused a great deal of surprise.  Several persons began to think that I was really a man who had been dwarfed and weakened from want of nourishment.

But the learned doctors again examined me, and decided that, as I did not walk on four legs, I must be a new kind of featherless parrot.  Thereupon I was given a pole to perch on, instead of a nice warm bed to lie in; and every day the queen’s fowler used to come and whistle tunes for me to learn.  In the meantime, however, I improved my knowledge of the language, and at last I spoke so well and intelligibly that all the courtiers said that the learned doctors had been mistaken.  One of the queen’s maids of honour not only thought that I was a man, but fell in love with me.  She often used to steal to my cage, and listen to my stories of the customs and amusements of our world.  She was so interested that she begged me to take her with me if ever I found a way of returning to the Earth.

In my examination by the learned doctors I had stated that their world was but a Moon, and that the Moon from which I had come was really a world.  It was this which had made them angry against me.  But my friend, the Man of the Sun, at last prevailed upon the king to let me out of the cage on my retracting my wicked heresy.  I was clad in splendid robes, and placed on a magnificent chariot to which four great noblemen were harnessed, and led to the centre of the city, where I had to make the following statement: 

“People, I declare to you that this Moon is not a Moon but a world; and that the world I come from is not a world but a Moon.  For this is what the Royal Council believe that you ought to believe.”

The Man of the Sun then helped me to descend from the chariot, and took me quickly into a house, and stripped me of my gorgeous robes.  “Why do you do that?” I asked.  “This is the most splendid dress I have ever seen on the Moon.”

“It is a garb of shame,” said my companion.  “You have this day undergone the lowest degradation that can be imposed on a man.  You committed an awful crime in saying that the Moon was not a Moon.  It is a great wonder you were not condemned to die of old age.”

“Die of old age?” I said.