Shooting Stars.

Otago Witness, Issue 2804, 11 December 1907, Page 91

Shooting Stars.

'There wa9 a man who, when the stars ■ were out above and the municipal stare vere complaisant below, used to tig up a telescope wherewith to study astronomy at sixpence a squint. One night as ' he was getting under way t.wo Irish gentlemen were seen taking an observation of his movements. Both were policemen. "Jamey," said one, "what in the wurruld is yon fellow afther with his machine?" "Whist, ye spalpeen," whispered the other ; "shure, anoV oan't ye see that it'© an air-gun cannon that he's got? He's afther shooting stars; he is." "Hadn't we better be getting out of the way thin?" inquired his friend. " dure, and it's not us," was the answer. "Didn't ye never hear of shooting stars?" By this time the telescope man had arranged his instrument and squinted through it at the stars. The policemen gazed up likewise in wonder. Just then, by an odd chance, a large meteor shot down from the sky. "Bedad, he's hit iir-he's fetched it down," cried both Paddies in a breath. and that's the greatest shooting I iver saw in my life." But a sense of duty at ,once prevailed, and one of them thus rudely accosted the man of science: "Yell just stop that now, mister, ay ye plase. The night is dark enough now, plinty, and if you go on shooting stars at that rate, eorra the manil find his way about the strate." An the telescope man had to pack up and be off.