THE COMET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10049, 23 May 1910, Page 5

THE COMET.

ON VIEW IN MASTERTON L4£T NIGHT.

(Specially Written for the "Age.")

(By the Man in the Street)

Dear Mr Editor, I saw the Comet kicking around Mastertnn last night, between Church time and bedtime. When the Army was praying oppo. site the Club Hotel it was stanug up ferry street at the proceedings, and when the various congregations went into Church, and even when they came out, they could not get rid of it. 'lt kept on staring right at them. I got tired of looking at i'„ and took a walk up Queen street. Somebody took up my attention at Church street, arid we wandered towards the Town Hall, but there was the Cometjstill gaping down at us, tail first. Now a man can have to» much of that sort of thing—especially as the great thing looked sick and unhealthy away up there in lhe western sky—so we turned and faced the moon towards the north-east. She was well worth looking at, being nearly full, and shining in a clear sky. I often think that if the moor* were to be seen, say, to-night for the first time, we would go a lot madder than we did over the Comet. Anyhow, it would be something worth getting up out of a warm bed to loofe at. I must say I'm not in love with Give me the good old moon, even if she does freeze themarrow in your bones occasionally, at night.

But coming back to the Comet. A of people were in the streets, ai.d it was funny to hear their remarks. Young and old had a word to say. One youngster —about sixteen —ha talked like a man of sev nty—s?«d "he didn't care for the tail;, tie didn't think it was a tail at all. It looked to him like a beer-chewer'a breath on a frosty morning." Another person with gold pince uez aßked me "if I'd seen it." I was staring at it with both eyes, but he didn't stop to look. He merely Haid "Quite reminds me, don't you know, of a motor-car in the distance with the dust flying." I replied that it might easily be taken for a well-lighted Havana or a Chinese Joss stick, but he was of too serious a turn of mind for humour, and I changed over to the next [group. "Charming view," I overheard a lady remark. "And is that really the Comet —oh, I'm so disappointed. I really thought it was like the sun and had a tail—a real horsehair tail—but I can only see a little dust, like when you sweep the floor in the sunbeams. Surely you don't say that's what they call a tail. But I must be going." And that was all she thought of Halley's wonder. Several other people stared at the Comet and talked about it, but they all appeared to be oblivions of the fact that the bright moon helped to rob the innocent monster of a good deal of its beauty. "Bah." said a man, as I turned carelessly in the direction of home. "Call that a Comet. Who'd be afraid of that thing? Give me tbo good old Southern Cross and the Milky Way. There's a tail for you! Why, yoa can see it at any time, and hera's all this fuss about a comet that isn't fit to wipe its boots. Bah! I'm going home."

And they mostly all taked like that. And all the time here was the poor Comet coming right out on show, free of charge, at the best part of the evening to save them getting up at an unearthly hour, and they didn't appreciate it one bit. Talk about encouraging science in Masterton after that.

I heard a man "gay as I turned down bur street on the way home that he shouldn't be astonished if the comet got angry at what they were saying about it, and swished its tail sufficiently to send down a deluge of rain before the morning.