However, the doctor did not respond wholly to my new enthusiasm. He was sleepy, and retired yawning to his own room to get the rest which had evaded him. But I lay and tossed on the pillows, revolving a hundred plans, and feeling anything but sleepy. Presently I thought of a scheme, which would demonstrate whether there was anything in the doctor's theory. I knew it would just suit him, and I sprang up and knocked gently on his door, saying,--
"I have it, Doctor. Here is the very idea!" There was no answer, so I knocked louder and listened. I heard him breathing heavily in deep slumber. After all, the morrow would do for ideas; just then he needed sleep.
Being unable to sleep, I arose early to get the refreshment of a morning walk. I passed quietly through the next room, where the doctor was still sleeping soundly, out into the courtyard. I was scarcely outside when I heard a familiar, excited barking, and Two-spot ran across the open space toward me as fast as his four short legs and his very active tail would carry him. His frantic jumping up toward me was extremely comical, for he sprang with more than twice the swiftness I was accustomed to seeing, almost to a level with my face, but he fell very slowly to the ground with only one third the speed that he would have fallen on Earth. He could jump, with almost the agility of a flea, and yet he fell back deliberately like a gas ball. He was evidently enjoying his muscles as much as I had mine. When he made a particularly high jump, I caught him in my hands and patted him fondly.
"So you didn't fly away with the projectile? Or, did you go with it, and is it safely back again, somewhere? How I wish you could speak my language and tell me all you know! These different tongues are a great bother, aren't they, Two-spot?"
He answered me volubly, but apart from the fact that he quite agreed with me, I could not understand his message. Had I been able to, it might have made a very great difference to me.
There was a beautiful, filmy snow on the ground, which had fallen during the night. It was scarcely more than a heavy hoar frost, and as the sun sprang up without any warning twilight, the snow melted and left the surface damp and fresh. As I afterwards learned, this thin snow fell almost every night of the year, except for the warmest month of summer when the grain ripened. There were hardly ever any violent storms or quick showers. The thin air made heavy clouds or severe atmospheric movements impossible. But the coolness of night, after a day of feeble but direct and tropical sunshine, precipitated the moisture in the form of those delightful feathers of darkness. I also learned that the months were distinguished by the time of night when this snow fell; for it was precipitated directly after sunset in the winter, but gradually later into the night as summer advanced, and finally just before daybreak. The month in which none fell at all was midsummer, of course. It had scarcely finished falling this morning when I came out into it.