Publisher's Synopsis
"The Universe is a mistake!"Thus spake Herbert Brande, a passenger on the Majestic, making for Queenstown Harbour, one evening early in the past year. Foolish as the words may seem, they were partly influential in leading to my terrible association with him, and all that is described in this book. Brande was standing beside me on the starboard side of the vessel. We had been discussing a current astronomical essay, as we watched the hazy blue line of the Irish coast rise on the horizon. This conversation was interrupted by Brande, who said, impatiently: "Why tell us of stars distant so far from this insignificant little world of ours-so insignificant that even its own inhabitants speak disrespectfully of it-that it would take hundreds of years to telegraph to some of them, thousands to others, and millions to the rest?
