The story of the Sun, New York, 1833-1918 / by Frank M. O'Brien.

RICHARD ADAMS LOCKE'S MOON HOAX 85
At all events, a deputation from that college hurried
to the steamboat and came to New York to see the
wonderful supplement. The collegians saw Mr. Day,
and voiced their desire.
"Surely," he replied, "you do not doubt that we
have the supplement in our possession? I suppose the
magazine is somewhere up-stairs, but I consider it almost an insult that you should ask to see it."
On their way out the Yale men heard, perhaps from
the " devil," that one Locke was interested in the matter
of the moon, that he had handled the supplement, and
that he was to be seen at the foot of the stairs, smoking
his cigar and gazing across City Hall Park. They advanced upon him, and he, less brusque than Mr. Day,
told the scientific pilgrims that the supplement was in
the hands of a printer in William Street-giving the
name and address.
As the Yale men disappeared in the direction of the
printery, Locke started for the same goal, and more
rapidly. When the Yalensians arrived, the printer,
primed by Locke, told them that the precious pamphlet
had just been sent to another shop, where certain proofreading was to be done. And so they went from post
to pillar until the hour came for their return to New
Haven. It would not do to linger in New York, for
Professors Denison Olmsted and Elias Loomis were
that very day getting their first peep at Halley's comet,
about to make the regular appearance with which it
favours the earth every seventy-six years.
But Yale was not the only part of intellectual New
England to be deeply interested in the moon and its
bat-men. The Gazette of Hampshire, Massachusetts,
insisted that Edward Everett, who was then running
for Governor, had these astronomical discoveries in
mind when he declared that "we know not how soon