about four
o'clock in the morning
_ _ With all other ipathies and opathies which Noodle has invented , and Foodle tried , since black-fellows chipped flints at Abbéville -- which is a considerable time ago , to judge by the Great Exhibition . _ But nothing would do ; for he screamed and cried all day for a water-baby , to come and drive away the monsters ; and of course they did not try to find one , because they did not believe in them , and were thinking of nothing but Bumpsterhausen 's blue follicles ; having , as usual , set the cart before the horse , and taken the effect for the cause . So they were forced at last to let the poor professor ease his mind by writing a great book , exactly contrary to all his old opinions ; in which he proved that the moon was made of green cheese , and that all the mites in it -LRB- which you may see sometimes quite plain through a telescope , if you will only keep the lens dirty enough , as Mr. Weekes kept his voltaic battery -RRB- are nothing in the world but little babies , who are hatching and swarming up there in millions , ready to come down into this world whenever children want a new little brother or sister . Which must be a mistake , for this one reason : that , there being no atmosphere round the moon -LRB- though some one or other says there is , at least on the other side , and that he has been round at the back of it to see , and found that the moon was just the shape of a Bath bun , and so wet that the man in the moon went about on Midsummer-day in Macintoshes and Cording 's boots , spearing eels and sneezing -RRB- ; that , therefore , I say , there being no atmosphere , there can be no evaporation ; and therefore , the dew-point can never fall below 71.5 ° below zero of Fahrenheit : and , therefore , it can not be cold enough there about four o'clock in the morning to condense the babies ' mesenteric apophthegms into their left ventricles ; and , therefore , they can never catch the hooping-cough ; and if they do not have hooping-cough , they can not be babies at all ; and , therefore , there are no babies in the moon . -- Q.E.D. Which may seem a roundabout reason ; and so , perhaps , it is : but you will have heard worse ones in your time , and from better men than you are . But one thing is certain ; that , when the good old doctor got his book written , he felt considerably relieved from Bumpsterhausen 's blue follicles , and a few things infinitely worse ; to wit , from pride and vain-glory , and from blindness and hardness of heart ; which are the true causes of Bumpsterhausen 's blue follicles , and of a good many other ugly things besides . Whereon the foul flood-water in his brains ran down , and cleared to a fine coffee colour , such as fish like to rise in , till very fine clean fresh-run fish did begin to rise in his brains ; and he caught two or three of them -LRB- which is exceedingly fine sport , for brain rivers -RRB- , and anatomised them carefully , and never mentioned what he found out from them , except to little children ; and became ever after a sadder and a wiser man ; which is a very good thing to become , my dear little boy , even though one has to pay a heavy price for the blessing .