Cobwebs from an Empty Skull

A herd of cows, blown off the summit of the Himalayas, were sailing some miles above the valleys, when one said to another: 

“Got anything to say about this?”

“Not much,” was the answer.  “It’s airy.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that,” continued the first; “I am troubled about our course.  If we could leave the Pleiades a little more to the right, striking a middle course between Boötes and the ecliptic, we should find it all plain sailing as far as the solstitial colure.  But once we get into the Zodiac upon our present bearing, we are certain to meet with shipwreck before reaching our aphelion.”

They escaped this melancholy fate, however, for some Chaldean shepherds, seeing a nebulous cloud drifting athwart the heavens, and obscuring a favourite planet they had just invented, brought out their most powerful telescopes and resolved it into independent cows—­whom they proceeded to slaughter in detail with the instruments of smaller calibre.  There have been occasional “meat showers” ever since.  These are probably nothing more than—­

[Our author can be depended upon in matters of fact; his scientific theories are not worth printing.—­TRANSLATOR.]