SCENE VIII.--ACT V. 199-225

Worthy of His Hire.--The Toiler Allowed to Live.--So Decreed by Law.--May not all be worthy.--Justice Elevates.--Some Leaders, but Public Sentiment the Force.--No High, and No Low.--Advanced Notions.--Old Age Pensions, &c.--Pleasing Outings Amid Wild Sport and Romantic Scenes.--Raising the Ideals, with a Climax.

INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS.

Save that that of the Hon. R. J. Seddon is placed facing page 8, Sir Joseph Ward facing page 16, the New Zealand Cabinet facing page 24, and Mr. T. E. Donne facing page 32, all the illustrations are spaced evenly through the work, classed or grouped consecutively, but owing to evident impossibilities they do not conform strictly to the text. All the illustrations are typically New Zealand.

_SCENE I._

INCONCLUSIVE ALLUSIONS.

This, being a true story, with the slight deviations necessary to the preservation of a due sense of proportion, it is deemed proper to casually introduce the characters on whom we must chiefly rely for the truthfulness or otherwise, of a most romantic adventure.

In such an introduction, the Editor, or compiler--the "I" in these pages--necessarily appears, but to the Chronicler himself, who has no "poetic license," we must rely for the correctness of the recital.

Though without my aid this strange story might possibly have reached the world, the manner of its coming into my hands has made me a "curtain-shifter," as it were, in the scenes, and in this pleasing task, fidelity shall be my only guide.

I was not "journeying towards Damascus," but being weary from many wanderings, and desirous of returning to dear old London as soon as possible, at Marseilles, I booked for Amsterdam on the fine passenger steamer _Irene_--the voyage, however, to be broken for a brief stay over at Lisbon.

It was midnight when we swung from our moorings and steamed out of the harbor, and, the sea being rough and I a bad sailor, I did not venture on the upper deck until nearly lunch time the following day. I was not too well. The sea was not placid, the air was damp and chill, and--well--I was not happy.

The decks were "sparsely populated," and as I was slowly zigzagging my way along, in a sense of utter loneliness, raising my eyes, my attention was aroused by the presence of what seemed a familiar figure. It was the graceful form of a tall, well-proportioned young man. His face was pale, his head was bent forward, he leaned heavily over the starboard railing of the vessel, and I imagined that he, too, was not well. I did not recognise him, but sympathy and curiosity, and, perhaps, custom, lead me half unconsciously to his side. I said to him soothingly, "It is rather rough to-day." He raised himself a little, leaned a little further over the ship's railing, and made a convulsive movement. He was "not well," but raising himself more erectly, he turned towards me slightly, and ironically said, "Thanks, so I have been informed." The "tone" of the expression was unkind, for my motives were good and my conduct was as wise as the occasion would suggest.

His voice limped piteously, but it had something in it of old familiarity. "You?" said I. My voice also had in it to him something of old familiarity. I looked in his face. He returned my gaze. The recognition was mutual.

"Leo Bergin!" said I.

"Sir Marmaduke!" said he.

"You have come to bring unholy memories," said I.

"And you have come to reproach me," said he, in tones of agony I shall never forget.

"No," said I, "Leo Bergin, I give my hand. 'Let the dead past bury its dead.' Look not sorrowfully over the past--it comes not again--but with resolute heart and strong hand brave the future, and thou shall find a crown or a grave. List--not another word of the past; but, Leo Bergin, what of the future?"

"Thou art kind," said he, with bowed head, and in good Bible phrase, "but I ill deserve your generosity."

"List," said I again, "Leo, what of the future?"

"The future?" said he, with bowed head, downcast eye, and awfully solemn voice, "the future? Because I know the past I feign would die; because I know not the future, I am cowardly enough to live. You know, my friend, my benefactor, that I have talent, good looks, and industry, but the world," said he more sadly, "is against me."

Yes, I had heard before that Leo Bergin had "talent, good looks, and industry." In fact, Leo Bergin, on a memorable occasion, had himself confessed to me as much. Ah! my brothers, what good opinions we have of ourselves. All of us, men and women, think ourselves possessed of talent, good looks and social merits; but here our self-satisfaction ends, for the dull world, whom we could so well serve, failing to appreciate us, we are left a prey to neglect, and often to despair.

Ah! my brothers, we forget that we are not impartial judges; that the world is impartial and may be just in its conclusions. How kindly we think of ourselves! In the person who readily agrees with us, what noble qualities of soul and mind we discover. But 'tis well, for conceit, foolish as it may seem, often saves us from despair.

Yes, Leo Bergin had talent, education, good looks, and industry; but Leo Bergin, I had concluded from the occasion referred to, was erratic, "a shingle short"--in fact, not "all there."

"But, Leo," said I, "where are you bound?"

"To h----," said he, in phrase quite jocular, in tones almost bitterly sad.

"Ah!" said I, "pack your kit then and step off at old Cadiz, for that is on the border."

But the bugle blew for lunch, and the association of ideas drove Leo Bergin to his cabin, and, with a sickly promise to "come later," I was left to ponder over the strange events of life--events that often lead to such meetings; the meetings, in turn, to lead to other events, even more strange and interesting.

A FRIEND IN NEED.

Well, my reader, while Leo Bergin is below, striving to compromise with his digestion, I will relate to you some of his peculiarities, that you may be prepared for his wonderful recital.

It was January 10th, 1898, as he entered my room on Great Russell Street, just opposite the British Museum, London, that I first saw him. He knocked at my door, gently; he entered my room, quietly; he sat down familiarly, and he opened the interview, promptly. I will not say Leo Bergin, on this occasion, was not modest; I will say he did not hesitate.

Had Leo Bergin remained silent I would have known that he was out of money, out of luck, out of friends, and almost out at the knees and elbows. But he evidently doubted my powers of perception, for, with superfluous frankness and eloquent volubility, he informed me that he only wanted a "loan" for a short time until he could "get on his feet."

These stories were very common. They had been very "taking" with me, but desiring to avoid occupying a like position I had grown impatient and crusty, possibly a little hard-hearted, so I looked squarely into his fine eyes, and asked him "to get on his feet" at once.

He arose, looked me in the face, not with defiance or humiliation, not with shame or impudence, but like a man. He said, "I am down." That was evident, but the soft saying of this had always cost me heavily, and, softening again, I asked who he was and what he could do.

He said, "I am an American; I was born in Virginia, lived in California, have done newspaper work in New Zealand, and as a journalist I am in London--and down."

I weakened. The man who had been born in Virginia, lived in California, and done newspaper work in New Zealand, could not be wholly depraved, for the very air of these three favored spots would preserve some semblance of virtue.

"I surrender," said I; "express your most fervent wish and it shall be granted."

He betrayed little emotion. His countenance remained placid, but he said, "I have talent, good looks, and industry, and I want employment,--I desire to earn my living. I asked for a loan, but it was in despair, and I desired to replace my lost revolver that I might 'quit this ghastly dream called life' before another week's board was due. But under the spell of your words, 'a change came o'er the spirit of my dream,' and now I must live."

"Must!" said I, "you assert this 'must' with such emphasis, perhaps you would tell me why you _must_ live? For my part I see no actual necessity for it--not the least."

A cloud was on his brow. He remained silent and immovable as a statue.

"Cheer up, old fellow," said I, "for if you desire to earn your living, I will secure a position for you."

I knew who wanted a man, "talented, good-looking and industrious." I gave Leo Bergin a suit of my clothes--just a little soiled, I confess, for, as a fact, I never could obey that divine injunction regarding the giving my brother a coat, until it was a little soiled. I gave him a strong letter to a friend on Trafalgar Square, and Leo Bergin stepped into a good position.

I was called to the Continent for a few months on important duty. Time went on and within a few weeks I received a brief note.

"Trafalgar Square, "London.

"To my Benefactor,

"Yours of ---- received. Glad,--you deserve it. I am well. I think my employer is satisfied, but I am a little restless.

"LEO."

"Talent, good looks, and ambition, but a fool," said I, "and he will never get on."

A few more weeks passed, and another note came from "Trafalgar Square, London." This was less brief than the other. It read:--

"Trafalgar Square, "London.

"Dear Sir,

"Leo Bergin is not at his desk. He has appropriated enough of my money to enable him to take a vacation, and--he left no address. Talent, good looks, and ambition Leo Bergin has, to some degree, but he is evidently a d---- villain. What did you know about this fellow, anyway?

"D. J. FOLDER."

There seemed no vagueness in this note, but I pondered. What did I know about him? Only that he was once born in Virginia, had lived in California, and had done newspaper work in New Zealand. Musingly, I said, "Perchance the villain lied." This solved the problem for the time, for it seemed more likely that a man should even lie, than go wrong with such a record.

For the time I lost all respect for Leo Bergin. To deliberately rob a confiding employer is reprehensible, and if Leo Bergin in this had not shown himself a thief, he had betrayed an entire lack of a sense of proportion. This was one side of Leo Bergin's character.

But lapses, my brothers, do not establish total depravity, for it is reported "of old" that a gentleman, on a very serious occasion, prevaricated on a very potent fact, and when confronted, "he denied." When pressed, "he denied with an oath," and yet this gentleman has been kindly remembered and well spoken of.

TEMPESTUOUS.

The wind increased in violence. It was a wild night. The blue Mediterranean was angry, but the good ship plunged ahead like a defiant monster. For two days more, the decks were unoccupied save by the careless sailors. The tables looked "lonesome," for the storm still raged in fury.

The hours and the days, that seemed like weeks and months, wore away. We rounded Cape Vincent, when immediately the wind ceased, the sea was calm, the ship rode smoothly, the air was balmy, and the passengers, like a section of the morning of resurrection, appeared plentifully upon the broad clean decks, and were happy.

Leo Bergin also appeared on deck. His smile was feeble, his grasp was languid, but he spoke earnestly of beef-steak and coffee, and I felt that he was--"better." Old Cadiz had been passed, and he had evidently concluded to try some climate other than the one previously suggested. We sat--we chatted. I was to leave the ship at Lisbon, finishing my journey by the next steamer. He?--I did not know. Strange, when we do people a favour we at once feel an interest in them. Possibly we feel somewhat responsible for such an one's conduct. Possibly, too, and more likely, we desire their success, that we may take to ourselves a little credit for a "happy career."

I had done Leo Bergin a favor, was interested in him, and asked as to his "future." His glance was friendly, his smile doubtful; he drew his chin lower on his bosom, drummed on a book with his gloved fingers, and said, "Well, I have made an acquaintance with a mysterious personage. I have talent, good looks, and ambition, but I am an outcast, and I am going on a new venture. You know the Folder episode, and, to be frank, after a serious review of the case, I question the propriety of my action, and now that the money is gone, I have many qualms of conscience."

I was not a little surprised, but I was glad to discover that he believed himself to have a little conscience, for as "conscience does make cowards of us all," I hoped for his reform.

We sat side by side, and planting his closed hand firmly on my knee by way of emphasis, he said, "Yes, I have made a new acquaintance, that of a mysterious personage, and I am now starting on the most reckless, the most risky, the most irrational, and the most romantic venture ever undertaken by mortal man, and if I succeed you shall hear from me; but if I fail, oblivion will claim Leo Bergin, and the claim will be promptly allowed. I made my new acquaintance and formed my new plans but yesterday, and I stand at the dawn of the most enchanting dream that ever lured a sensible man to ruin."

I begged him to unfold his tale, but he answered, "You are a practical man, and you would regard my undertaking as so wild and visionary as to indicate insanity, for you do not regard me as an imbecile. If I fail, only another leaf, its stem nipped by the frost, flutters to the ground to fertilise the soil. If I fail, the world, save you, knows not of my folly. If I succeed, the facts that I shall reveal will be more strange than fiction, and the results of my adventure will redound to the glory of the land I love."

"Ill as I was," he continued, "I began my notes yesterday, October 5th, 1898, off the coast of Spain, and I shall keep a true record of my doings and my observations. If I survive, which is hardly likely, I shall find you and place my notes at your disposal. If I perish--if possible you shall have them brought down to the last breath, and in every page you shall have evidence of my gratitude and my integrity."

"But tell me," said I, with impatience. Here the whistle blew, we saw all confusion, and we were entering the port of Lisbon. Time for further explanation, there was none. We separated, I to follow out well-laid plans for business and pleasure, he--well, to me it was an unsolvable riddle; but I never lost faith that, some time and in some place, Leo Bergin would again turn up.

_SCENE II._

LEO BERGIN "TURNS UP."

Two years had passed, and with all my professions of interest and regard, for a full year of that time Leo Bergin had not entered my mind, and for the whole two years, he had occupied very little of my thoughts. As a fact, save on one occasion when D. J. Folder, in forgiving jest told me that he needed a man, and asked if I could recommend a young man with "talent, good looks and ambition," for the position, I do not remember having thought of Leo Bergin.

Absence defaces memory. Ah! how quickly we are forgotten. We spend our brief time upon this showy stage, assuming that we are necessary to the world's success or pleasure, but when we drop to senseless dust, all save a few, go merrily on, and even they, in a day or a few days, dry their tears and join the happy throng again.

Later, in the autumn of 1900, I was called to Copenhagen on business, and having made the acquaintance of a prominent physician there, I was invited to visit one of the leading hospitals.

In going the rounds of the various wards, we were informed that several new patients had just entered, brought from a ship which had returned from a North Polar voyage. This would satisfy some curiosity, and soon we were among the new patients. There were a dozen in all, mostly Russians, Finns, and Danes, but at one side of the ward we noticed there were two pale-looking fellows, conversing in English.

Instinctively I walked across to their presence, when to my astonishment, gazing earnestly at me, I recognised the sad, pitiful face, of emaciated, health-broken Leo Bergin.

His eyes brightened slightly, he smiled faintly, and reached a feeble faltering hand to meet mine, in friendly greeting. There was time for smiles of waning joy, time for sighs and tears of pity, but for words, the time had well nigh sped, for Leo Bergin was close to the pearly gates.

"Sit close," said he, "sit close, for I am sailing for another port, and while I don't know the nature of the climate, there can be nothing better, and nothing worse than I have had in this world, so let the storm howl, and the ship plunge, I am not whining."

So saying, he slightly turned on his bed, and reaching a thin hand under his pillow, he drew forth a package wrapped in some soft skin, and tied about with twine.

"Here," said he faintly, "this tells the whole story. It is all good 'stuff,' but I place it at your disposal. If you think it better, you may boil it down, and if you make anything out of it, well, pay Folder, for I had a good time with his money, and now I have plenty to last me through. I don't know how, but some way I knew I should find you, and this,--it is all true, but the dreams of fiction never unfolded anything half so strange."

I longed for a few more minutes, but the form of Leo Bergin lay limp on the bed. His hands were lax, his brow wore a deathly pallor, and his lips moved slowly in inaudible whispers. I touched his hand, for I wanted one more word, and as he seemed to slightly revive, I said:

"'Tell my soul, with sorrow laden,' where have you been?"

He aroused a little, smiled, and pointing to the package, gaspingly said, "It is all there, all there, and I--well, I have been to 'Symmes' Hole,'"--and when I looked again upon that placid face, the soul of Leo Bergin had sailed for the other "Port."

ADJUSTING THE CURTAINS.

Leo Bergin, with neatness and despatch, was comfortably buried, myself being chief mourner, and "after life's fitful fever he sleeps well." I was impatient to know the contents of the package, but desiring to enjoy perfect leisure, while unravelling the mystery so intensified by Leo's earnestness, I reluctantly laid it away, to wait my arrival in London.

Time passed.

I was back at my old quarters in Great Russell Street, London. The weather was so chill, dark, and foggy, that, at four, I had lighted the gas. The fire burned lazily in the small grate. The room was not uncomfortable, but in harmony with the gloomy surroundings. I was touched by a feeling of depressing loneliness. I paced the not very expansive floor, peered through the blackness into the dimly lighted streets, paced again, lighted a cigar, sat and pondered.

Thrown back in an easy chair, dreamingly watching the graceful whirling wreaths of my consoling Havana, my thoughts on random wing soared aimlessly away, to gather up the memories of vanished days. Then, like gladsome youths on holiday, came trooping along the casual incidents of an easy life, my last visit to Venice, my run to Marseilles with Monarco's party, the stormy voyage along the coast of Spain. Ah! here, in flesh and blood with spare but athletic form, pale scholarly face, pleasing but rather melancholy smile, gentle voice and cordial, arose Leo Bergin; a thought! The form vanished, but the "package" was more substantial, and I hurriedly unpacked my trunk, and drew it forth, just as he had given it me fully three months earlier.

With a thrill of mingled pain and pleasure, I removed the rough twine, and unrolled the leather wrapping. My heart throbbed with emotion, my hand trembled, but my eager eyes beheld a large roll of manuscript neatly tied with familiar tape.

While I had not even a glimpse of the nature of these notes, I did not even guess, or attempt to guess, their character. I knew that Leo Bergin, when quite alive, had talent and ambition--the good looks for this occasion I will omit--and I knew this was a most interesting, if not an important "find."

In contemplating the situation, as I leisurely removed all surplus or superfluous covering, a small scrap of soiled and crumpled paper fell to the floor, and on picking it up, I was not a little surprised to see that it was an especial note. It was written in a feeble, but legible hand, and read as follows:--

"Nowhere, "November, 1900.

"To whoever may find the within,--

"As I am breathing my last, and I am a little anxious to be off, I pray you to forward at once to Sir Marmaduke, Colonial Club, Whitehall, London.

"LEO BERGIN. "Richmond Virginia, late of 'Symmes' Hole.'"

This was another side of the character of Leo Bergin. Mentally, I was in what may, I think with some propriety, be termed a state of deeply interested confusion. I unrolled and exposed to view the whole package. It was voluminous. It was composed of some twenty writing tablets, each with a large number of thin sheets, foolscap size. These tablets were consecutively numbered, the pages were closely written on one side, the first few being in a round neat hand, the skill rather weakening as the work proceeded.

I was too eager for a general inspection to deliberately peruse any particular portion or feature of the whole, but there was a sufficient mass of what seemed by the painstaking methods to make a large volume.

But the mystery still deepened. Where, for what purpose, and under what circumstances, was the work done? There were here and there strange names of places, strange personages and strange events recorded. Was Leo Bergin mad? or was there, in fact, somewhere passing events that were indeed stranger to us than fiction?

My cigar went out, the fire had "followed suit," I looked at my watch with some impatience, and it showed the "wee sma' hours" had come. I was perplexed, paced the floor, and looking out into the street, I saw how the gusts of wind drove the snow and sleet along with the fury of a demon. I shuddered as I paced the floor, but how could I unravel the mystery, the mystery that perplexed me?

"Back into my chamber turning, all my soul within me burning," I said again, "Where is the key?" for Leo Bergin had talent and ambition, and while he seemed erratic, he was no visionary dreamer. While Leo Bergin lacked a sense of proportion, even in his foibles he was practical, and had at least one eye on the main chance.

"No," said I, "Leo Bergin was no dreamer," he had no fads, no superstitions, and little imagination, and he was a true Bohemian. He had a "nose for news," a genius for work, and a love for adventure that all the fiends in and out of Hades could not thwart.

But how could I unravel the mystery? Where the de'il had he been for two long years? Who was Symmes? And if Symmes had a hole, where was it?

Here I paused--an idea struck me. "I am a fool," said I--but I would rave should any one less informed regarding my weakness say so. Ah! I have it. Here it is, for he said, on our parting, as he handed it to me, "It is a record of every day's doings and events." Yes, and he said, on our parting at Lisbon, "I made my new acquaintance, and laid my plans for future action yesterday. I have begun my work, and I shall keep a truthful record of every day's doings and events, and on my return I will place it at your disposal."

"Plain enough, it is all there, and to-morrow I shall begin," said I, "to unravel this mysterious story."

_SCENE III._

A STRANGE STORY.

"To-morrow" has come. The outside world seems glad to be alive. I--the Editor--accustomed to mental ease and physical comfort, am confronted with perplexing duties. My bills are paid, my health is good, and my mind is clear, but, confound the idea of work! I never liked work, and I fear even custom will not reconcile me to drudgery. But duty calls, and, so far, duty has never called upon me in vain.

I--the Editor, remember--am ashamed that I forgot Leo Bergin for two long years; I am more ashamed that I so nearly forgot the package, the contents of which may bring pleasure to many a curious and careworn soul, for, as a fact, I feel rebuked even by the presence of this evidence of sturdy resolve, so wanting in myself. As a fact, I know, when I care to be serious, that Leo Bergin, with his restless ambition, his tireless industry, his dauntless courage, his reckless love of adventure, and his almost insane determination to turn on a little more light, with all his faults, was worth to his kind, more than a legion of happy idlers, who, like myself, were born in wealth, and indolently dallied in the soft lap of luxury, careless alike to the sorrows and the joys of common humanity.

Well, as a compromise with my conscience--I think it must be conscience, for the sensation is new to me--I am determined to unravel the mystery of Leo Bergin's absence, and, if in the mass of labored matter, there is one thought or fact or idea worthy of his fine attainments and insane strife, the world shall find some compensation for his many errors.

With comfortable surroundings, cheerful fire, easy chair, convenient desk and table, fine cigars, ample library, a new found sense of duty, an industry aroused by remorse, and with a sense of deep responsibility I begin my work, feeling that the suggestion from the dying author to "boil it down" has vastly augmented the difficulties that confront me.

I am abundantly aware that the age is athirst for fiction, whereas I have for its patience but a plain unvarnished tale. I know the taste for graceful periods, while I can give but labored phrase, and I know the critics want only the "meat," while I must crave the indulgence of an occasional flourish.

For the present, at least, I shall "boil down" the matter contained in Leo Bergin's copious notes. In this I may do him an injustice, but I shall save myself much toil and mental worry.

Of Leo Bergin I shall speak well. He is dead--and by the world's philosophy, we should speak kindly of the dead. What a vile philosophy! Why not speak kindly of the living? Why do we taunt, and harpoon, and revile the erring soul, until it drops into senseless dust, and then, when our poisoned shafts no longer sting, feel constrained to "speak kindly of the dead!"

Oh! my brothers, be good to me while I am alive; you may encourage me, aid me, save me, and when I am dead, you have a standing invitation to my funeral, and your tongues will not grieve me.

But, goodbye, indolent reverie, goodbye dreamy speculation, goodbye ease and careless waste of precious hours, and welcome toil, for I am going to do penance, so welcome wearisome work, and welcome thou confused mass of spoiled and rumpled paper, for I long to release the winged words, held so sacredly in your perishable grasp.

'Tis a strange mystery, the power of words. Life is in them, and death. A word may send the crimson current hurrying to the cheek, hurrying with many meanings, or may turn it, cold and deadly, to the heart. And yet, a word is but a breath of passing air. This is pretty--I hope it is original, but I fear it is not--but here begins the diary, a full record of the doings and observations of Leo Bergin for two eventful years. Where is number one? Ah! here it is, a few little old crumpled sheets I had not seen. No. 1 plain enough. He began on these, and laid in his supply of paper later. I will quote _verbatim_ the first few pages, as they may furnish the key to the whole.

Well, then, this is the starting of that career, I hope an interesting one. It begins:--

"At sea, on board steamer _Irene_, "Off coast Spain, "October 5th, 1898.

"Terrible storm! The purser said we were in 'imminent danger.' Danger! how thrilling!--if a fellow were not so sick. Terrible storm! But, as compared with my tempestuous soul, the angry Mediterranean is still.

"I regret having met Sir Marmaduke. He did me a kindness; I served Folder well; Lucile, and I--a poor adventurer--became friends. _The Times_ wanted me to go to Armenia; I borrowed the money from young Folder in his father's absence; young Folder, it seems, took the money from the firm's safe; he fell into disgrace with his father, accused me, and--well, Folder and Sir Marmaduke and dear Lucile, all think me a thief. Let the old Mediterranean howl, let her mountainous waves plough the ground, until all the bones of all she has slain are washed up and cast on the shores of bloody Spain, and until the Pillars of Hercules are torn from their base, and I will laugh at raving Nature's petulant moods, and go down smiling with the wreckage to death and eternal night. But confound young Folder! and, but for Lucile, I would teach him a sense of proportion. Sir Marmaduke shall sometime know that he was not mistaken in me--and Lucile--well, maybe she'd rather think me a villain, than to know her brother was one."

Well, well! "Oh, my prophetic soul!" Leo Bergin, forgive! Then, Leo was not a thief, and I, like a common fool, now that the truth is out should have known that Leo Bergin, with his fine attainments, his superb vanity, and his indifference to wealth, could not stain his hands with dishonor. Surely it was a foolish proceeding at such a juncture for Leo Bergin to die. What fine material for a romance! But we never romance. He continues:--

"This morning I discovered that I had a strange cabin mate. Physically, he is the finest type of manly beauty I ever beheld; and, mentally, he seems above our common human nature. That he is no fool is certain, that he is not insane, I am fairly well persuaded, and that he is mistaken seems hardly credible, yet as measured by all the supposed knowledge of our generation, by the demonstrations of science and the calculations of thinkers, he talks the most arrant nonsense. His splendid personality, his easy graceful manners, and his general intelligence interests one; his 'sublime gift of eloquent gab,' his seeming logic, and his insinuating ideas are charming, but the seeming boldness, not to say audacity of his statements astonishes one. But to me, he is resistless; and for good or ill, success or failure, life or death, I have cast my lot with him.

"Evening, later. Strange experience this--the storms have no terror for me. Strange! but this mysterious cabin mate has captivated me. I was so bewildered with his impossible statements and extravagant claims, and with all his absolute indifference as to our incredulity, that I sought refuge in the captain's room, and here, listening to an interesting recital, I spent four of the most thrilling hours of my life.

"The captain is certainly a gentleman of superior parts. He has a fine knowledge of astronomy, he is a master of geography, and is deeply read in the broader and more general physical sciences, and yet, in the presence of this stranger, as he seems not of our world in any sense common to our understanding, he is dumb with astonishment.

"This strange being, surely a man, for he eats and drinks and smokes, and worse, he snores, says he is Amoora Oseba, that he lives in a great city called Eurania, in a country called Cavitorus, and that his people are called Shadowas. Save that the mind wanders with an unconscious effort to locate this country, city, and people, this statement seems but commonplace.

"But where is Cavitorus? Where is the City of Eurania? and who the de'il are the Shadowas? Save that he might be regarded as a superior sample, this Amoora Oseba--which sounds Arabian--might be taken easily for a Russian, a Dane, a Scot, or a Yankee. But whence came he? Let him tell us.

"At the captain's suggestion, I invited him to the fore-cabin, where, seated around a table, our host, the chief engineer, a merchant from Boston, a parson, my cabin mate and myself, were met for interesting inquiry.

"The instruments having been brought and the glasses filled, the captain looked in the face of Mr. Oseba, and said in manly business tones, 'We have become interested in you, Mr. Oseba, and while your statements seem most astounding to us, we have invited you to my cabin, that we might persuade you to give us some explanation of your strange theories; and as an introduction of the subject, I beg to inquire from what country you hail, and what is your destination?'

"The question seemed rational, and to most men, how easily answered! But here was a new experience. All eyes were turned on the handsome, intelligent, earnest face of my new-made friend and fellow-passenger, and he said: 'Mystery lies just beyond the visible horizon of the knowable. Because I have explored the realms of your mental and visible horizon, either of you could easily answer me such a question, and to the satisfaction of all; but as my country lies beyond both your mental and visible horizon, I can only answer by an explanation, moving or advancing such lines.'

"Here Amoora Oseba took a globe in his hand, and remarked that as educated men they regarded this as a 'counterfeit presentment' or model of the world they inhabited. He explained that for millions of years, our ancestors remained indifferent, and then disputed about the shape or form of the world they inhabited; that in comparatively recent times loving men cooked one another for believing the world to be round, and that in times really but yesterday, the most advanced people had nothing like a correct conception of the construction of the Universe.

"'In old, old times,' he said, 'our ancestors believed the world to be flat. That question for thousands of years was considered settled. For a comparatively brief time the world has been considered to be round, a solid sphere. This, for this short period, has been the "settled" notion.'

"But he assured us that the propositions were equally fallacious. The whole party was inclined to laugh, but he continued. He reminded us that we all believed in the nebular theory, that our earth, with the other planets, had been thrown off by the sun's rapid rotary motion; that in rapid revolution these masses had assumed forms peculiar to their revolutionary velocity, that planets had in turn thrown off masses that had become satellites, and that form was a result of motion, mass, and volume. He reminded us of the natural tendency of matter to fly from the surface of a rapidly revolving wheel, cylinder, or globe.

"This was the case with our earth. While yet a yielding or molten mass, it whirled very rapidly on its axis, the surface cooled and became rigid, and the molten matter contracted. During this process, the plastic interior moved towards the crust, the cooling mass requiring less and less space. Thus the centre parted, and our earth became, not a solid globe, as you were taught to believe, but an oval ring, a hollow ball, revolving rapidly as do the rings of Saturn, formed under the same law, but owing to the mass in her case being greater, the gravitation of the interior held the central mass together as a planet. 'As a fact,' he said, taking a large apple in his hand, 'if the core of this apple were removed with a care that would preserve the proper curvature, I will venture to say "ovality," it would present an exact model of our world. Then the world is hollow, not solid, and it is habitable and inhabited over the oval.'

"The members of the party looked at each other with amused curiosity. 'Symmes!' said the captain; 'Hurra for old Kentuck!' said the Yankee; 'Logic!' said the engineer.

"'You smile,' said Oseba, 'but a man may smile and smile, he may even sneer, and still be wrong.'

"He looked so undisturbed, so dignified and earnest, that levity ceased, and he said 'As a rule, men accept their opinions ready made, and they only search for corroborating evidence. When Galileo proclaimed a new truth, he was silenced, by the frowns of authority. Who was right? When Bruno proclaimed a great truth, he was cooked, by authority. Who was right? All your schoolboys of to-day know.'

"'But when Symmes advanced a new theory, because the world had grown more tolerant or less earnest, he was laughed out of court, while those who imprisoned Galileo, and cooked Bruno, and ridiculed Columbus and Magellan, having grown careless, amused themselves by writing of Symmes' northern regions as "Symmes' Hole."'

"'Well, gentlemen,' said Mr. Oseba, 'I am from over the Oval, from "Symmes' Hole," and after five years of constant travel and hard study among the people of the outer world, whom we call Outeroos, I am returning to "Symmes' Hole," and this young man,' turning to me, 'is going with me to report.'

"There was no mirth, the captain drumming on the table said, 'Ahem!' The Yankee said, as he looked quizzically at me, 'Well, I guess he'll have to muffle himself up pretty good, and I think our house could give him a proper outfit,' and the engineer said to me, 'raising the curtain is the most interesting part of the performance.'

"'But this is so far outside of our experience and our observations,' said the good-natured skipper.

"'Pardon,' said the calm Oseba, 'the observations of your men of experience have but confirmed our contentions, though the evidence so far, has not disturbed the hypotheses of your theorists. But what are the observations of your men of hard experience? This leads to another line of inquiry.'

"Save by an occasional question, the silence of the listeners had been unbroken from the start. The subject had been profoundly discussed, and as the hour was growing late, it was agreed that the party meet at once after dinner on the following evening. All faces now looked serious. The captain thanked the stranger, and said, 'We met to scoff, we remained in rapt attention, we retire to meditate. To-morrow evening,' said he, 'we will question you, our worthy guest, with a different feeling. Good night.'

"What a unique experience! How I would like to have had Sir Marmaduke with us. But Sir Marmaduke thinks I am a thief and unworthy of his presence.

"Well, goodbye old day, I'll throw me down and sleep my cares away."

By George! that is striking. The man from "Symmes' Hole." Ha! Ha! Well, I wish I had been there. But Leo Bergin does me an injustice, for I was too careless to think about his crime, or alleged crime, for, as a fact, I liked him when I met him, and in his absence, I never thought either of him or his folly.

"What fools we mortals be!" We are eternally worrying about what others think of us, when, in fact, each of all the "others" is quite engaged with his or her own affairs. What "everybody says" is usually only what some idle meddler says, the busy world having no thought or care on the matter. But Leo Bergin thought of me, well--

"I'd give the lands of Deloraine, If Musgrove were alive again."

But,--"Never, never more."

Let us see what follows, for this is more interesting far, than a courtship. Let's see--the next day I left the ship at Lisbon, in response to mail from Hamburg. Let's see if I am forgotten as easily as he was, and what the man from Symmes' Hole had to say at the adjourned meeting. By my soul, this is rich! The notes read:--

"At sea, on board S.S. _Irene_, "Off coast of Portugal, "October 7th, 1898.

"'Tis midnight's holy hour, and silence now is brooding o'er a still and pulseless world.

"What an eventful day! In old Lisbon a few hours, made a few purchases--paper to hold stuff enough to startle the world--saw Sir Marmaduke on the steps of the Cathedral; he did not answer my salute. If I live, he shall know me better. If--oh, that terrible 'if'! that brief halt, that in all our hopes arises to console us, that brief halt that excuses impotency for failure, chills me.

"Had a long chat with my chief, Oseba, _re_ our polar journey. Strange, I speak of this with candour, and make my plans as if it were actual, and yet my judgment scoffs at my foolish dreams, for, as a fact, it must be the delusion of a madman. So I thought at 4 p.m.--

"Later.

"Promptly at eight, the party of last evening re-assembled in the captain's cabin. All seated at the table, Amoora Oseba handed round some fine cigars, the glasses were filled, and the skipper said, 'Now, Mr. Oseba, we would like to hear further from you, for if you are insane, there seems to be method in your madness. If you are a joker, you are a most charming entertainer, but if you are sane and candid, for the world's good you should remain quiet, only when necessary to refresh yourself for further effort.'

"The captain had prepared a six-inch globe by removing the axial core, and paring down the outer openings so as to leave it oval with the outer curves for Mr. Oseba's convenience in making his illustrations--this was Oseba's 'apple,' the core removed.

"On rising, Mr. Oseba thanked the captain for his courtesy, and raising the globe, he reminded the party that he was to review the observations of experienced men in support of what to him was more than a theory. He asked his friends to fix in their minds the new form of our globe, for that was important.

"He first called attention to the fact that all the extreme North Polar regions were rich with the waste or remains of animal and vegetable life. This was 'settled.' 'All navigators agree,' he said, 'that hibernating animals, say above 80 or even 78°, go north to winter; and that driftwood comes from the north with flowers unknown to botanists. In high latitudes birds and swarms of insects come from the north in spring, and Tyson's men killed many of these migrating birds for food for his crew. In the craws of these birds there were found undigested grains of wheat, some of which were planted and grew in California. The kernel of this wheat was three times the common size, and California seasons were too short for its ripening. Now, whence came the birds, the wheat, and the insects? Plainly, from "Symmes' Hole." Greely found the ice but four feet thick at 82°, and less than two feet at 84°, so the ice would not bear the boats, and many navigators report an open polar sea, and greatly agitated waters at high latitudes.

"'By the old theory, it must be known that, at the poles, the North Star would be--must be--directly overhead, or in the zenith. But, as a fact, all polar explorers know that the pole star is in the zenith at about 80°, and that, at 83-4°, it is seen far towards the stern of the ship. If the old theory were true, this phenomenon seen at 84° would only appear after a ship had sailed past the Pole some ten or twelve degrees.

"'The fact is,' said he, 'sailing north at 84°, the verge is past, the curvature is sharper, and the ship is dipping into "Symmes' Hole." Further, at 82° north, the horizon very sensibly contracts to the north and south, and enormously lengthens east and west. This is on the verge, at the point of sharpest curvature.'

"While these arguments were not entirely new to the captain, they struck him with a new force, and the party remained silent. Assuming that he had made out his case, the Sage assured us confidently that the earth was hollow, with openings at the Poles; that the equatorial sides are about 3000 miles thick; that the surface of the interior world, like that of the outside, has mountains and plains, rivers and lakes; that it has proportionately less habitable lands, an equatorial zone of some 2000 miles being quite uninhabitable; that on either side of this there is a habitable belt of variable width; that from the sun and its reflections, and electrical phenomena, there are ample light and heat; and that about 3000 miles north of the equator, just under and opposite the Greenwich meridian, stands the City of Eurania--the most beautiful and opulent on this planet--the capital of a great and wealthy country.

"Silence reigned for a few moments, when the deeply interested Boston man, in the most inquisitive and earnest tones said, 'But, my dear Sir, as we are evidently of about the same class of goods, and were probably turned out of the same mill, how the de'il did you fellows get down there? and how the de'il did you get out?'

"This discussion, so learned, so full, so logical, so eloquent, and so earnest, should be preserved, even to the tones and expression, but I am weary, and it is late, and if--there is that 'if' again--if I live, nothing of that scene shall perish; and if I don't--and, I won't--I will have spent time enough on it, for all will probably be lost, so I will 'boil it down.'

"Well, in answer, Amoora Oseba said that it was now a well-settled theory that, probably owing to periodic oscillations of the earth, the course and character of which were not yet understood, there had been great changes in the temperature of the polar regions. The moving down and the receding of the polar ice limits, in no distant geological times in the past are abundantly evident. The temperature at the so-called Poles had materially varied, the ice-belt so oscillating that at times animal and higher vegetable life flourished at high latitudes, as is known by the abundant remains of undecayed animals still found in the ice fields.

A PRETTY TALE.

"Then he related a tradition among his people, reciting that in the far distant past--at a time probably when the polar regions were rather temperate, and most of the human race were yet in barbarism--a small tribe of peacefully disposed people inhabited a fertile region in an open world, where the horizon stretched away alike in all directions.

"The chief of these amiable people was an attractive and commanding personality named Olif. This Olif had a most beautiful daughter, whose mother, while gathering flowers for her child, had been strangled by the orders of an envious and childless queen. The name of the daughter was Eurania, which means "Sunbeam." But as she grew to womanhood she so strongly resembled her father, and was so constantly at his side, that the two beings seemed a double--but a single soul--and soon the people idolised the damsel under the name of Oliffa. Olif and Oliffa, the chief and his daughter, as guardian spirits, held supreme authority.

"At a great festival, in which many kindred tribes and nations met to celebrate an historic event, a grim chieftain of a warlike tribe became enamoured of Oliffa. He demanded her as one of his wives. Oliffa declined--there was a rush to arms, and many of Olif's people were slain.

"The great King Oonah took sides with his warlike chief. Oliffa was taken by force, she was led to an altar in sight of her people, her ankles were loaded with fetters, her whole tribe were condemned to extinction, and preparations were being made for the general massacre. When the King, beholding Oliffa that she was stately, beautiful, and wise withal, said:

"'Let not Olif and his tribe be slain, but banished--banished; for 'tis not well that so goodly a people should perish from the earth. I have spoken.'

"But Olif and his followers gathered themselves together, and the warriors, joining in one defiant voice, answered:

"'While we may not hope to resist the force of your savage chieftains who would expel us, we will fight here until we all die, under the gaze of Oliffa; and,' said they in thunderous tones, 'we have spoken.'

"Oliffa, heroic in her despair, raised herself to her full height, and, lifting her hands imploringly to the National Gods, in a clear and earnest voice that made the chieftain quail, said:

"'No, my father and my people, die not, but live for Oliffa--save a remnant of the tribe of Olif. I am Oliffa--human virtue is greater than kings or death. Go to the north, dwell in the hollow of my hand, and, in the fulness of time, thou shalt return to embrace me.' She had finished.

"With bowed head and in sorrow, Olif and his followers withdrew, and slowly wended their way towards the unknown regions of the north. But a party, with the angry chief Sawara, pursued, and coming to the verge of the land, Olif and his band took refuge on what seemed to be a small island. Here they repelled their pursuers, and soon they saw the channel that separated them from the mainland widen, and they thanked their deities for their deliverance.

"But, alas! they soon discovered that they were on an ice-floe, and were moving north toward the open sea. Provisions soon gave out, they prayed to their gods, they floated and suffered, and as the weaker perished, cannibalism was resorted to--for madness possessed the despairing party. Days and weeks passed, an impenetrable fog enveloped them, and they gave themselves up to utter hopelessness.

"However, soon the atmosphere became milder, the distant breakers were heard, the fog rose like a curtain, and behold! land was near. Nearer yet they floated. Night came, the full moon shone, but it moved not up from, but along the rim of the horizon. Morning came, bright and balmy. The floe had entered a strange harbor, and soon the shores were reached. It seemed a 'goodly land' with fertile soil and genial climate.

"'But a remnant of the peaceful tribe of Olif,' he said, 'were saved--nine men, thirteen women and five children. They cut boughs and built an habitation, and they said: "This shall be our dwelling place. Our city shall be called Eurania, in honor of our lost one, and here we will tarry until we return to the goddess Oliffa."'

"'This country,' said Oseba, 'was Cavitorus. These people were the ancestors of my people, the Shadowas, and on the banks of a charming harbour they built the City of Eurania, the most beautiful to-day on this planet.'

"'Through all the ages, from barbarism to the present,' said Oseba, 'there has been a lingering tale, a faint tradition among the people as related, and a vague idea that they dwelt in a shadow, in the hollow of a hand, and that some time in after ages, or in after life, they would return to an upper world, called in nursery tales and by the superstitious, Oliffa, where the inhabitants are called Outeroos--because they dwell on the outer world.'

Leo Bergin soliloquizes:--

"What astounding folly! and yet, I am on my way over the limitless fields of ice and snow and dead men's bones, to this phantom city, Eurania. Courage! who knows, for--

'There are more things in heaven, and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'"

"'Well,' said Oseba, 'these few people were of an amiable race, and a common danger, and a common sorrow, had made them brethren. Then the animals of this country were many, strong, amiable, and easily tamed; the mountains were accessible, the climate genial, and the soil so fruitful that there was nothing to suggest savagery. All nature smiled, and man progressed peacefully.'

"'The people,' he continued, 'increased, they were prosperous and happy. They had no foes--so war was unknown. The animals of the chase were tamed, and agriculture became an early occupation.'

"Traditions had been broken; back of the people there were but dead walls. Interminable ice and snow, as well as time, separated them from the past. With prosperous industry the population increased. Colonies were planted along the interior sea shores, and commerce was developed. There were no despots to despoil, no superstition to blight, no wars to devastate, no idleness to waste, and wealth, such as the Outeroos never dreamed of, followed as a result.

"The lands were held for the people, but the lands were limited, and as the centuries came and went, and went and came, the population became very dense. Civilisation and Science had come, but the population began to press upon the means of subsistence. Opulent nations arose, accumulated wealth was great, but room was becoming scarce. For a time, inventive genius helped to solve the problem, but the sorrows multiplied as the struggle was made more easy. Soon necessities suggested remedies for growing evils, which not to use meant universal destruction.

"The population crowded and the weak and deformed were 'removed.' The remedy was but tentative, and gradually the pressure grew still stronger. As the centuries passed, all the weak, the worthless, and the unfit were sterilised. The pressure still increased. The State then provided for taking charge of all the children, and only the most fit were allowed to become parents.

"Under this policy, and under wise management, the State became the 'universal mother.' Parents knew not their offspring, nor the offspring their parents, and the love of humanity and public duty became the inspiring motives of human action. Under this policy, too, have the leading nations of Cavitorus, with the Shadowas in the lead, developed their present civilisation. Under such a policy they have been able to adjust the population to the possibilities of the land, and thus while they have been building their opulent present, they have developed the finest type of people mentally, morally and physically, that ever inhabited this planet.

"Oseba explained the quickness of the soil in Cavitorus, the length of the seasons and of the days, with their peculiar irregularities. He described the movements of the sun, its appearance at various seasons of the year, and why it was never entirely dark in those regions.

"Then he recited a further tradition, relating that at the time the people reached Cavitorus, the bright star Oree was the 'Pole Star,' that it had moved gradually away, but that in about twenty thousand years it was to return to its old position. Further, that on the return of Oree--the tradition ran--the Shadowas would be released from their seeming isolation, and be reunited with their brethren of the outer world to the presence, or on the surface of, Oliffa.

"'You see,' said Oseba, 'in the development of all people their myths and their heroes are strongly allied to, if they are not the actual forces of, Nature, and all have a seasoning of truth as a basis.

"'The people had watched Oree; were waiting his return, and were alert for signs of the coming change, or, as they put it, for a "deliverer." They believed from this tradition, that they had been in Cavitorus twenty thousand years, and a confidence in their future deliverance was a deep-seated superstition, a real faith and hope.

"'Well, Oree, as seen from the spot where the first "pilgrims landed," as indicated by a peak on a distant mountain, appeared some twenty-five years ago, and, as on the very night the observations were taken a portion of a wrecked vessel was cast upon our shores, no wonder the long-deferred hope found expression in a movement for inquiry and exploration.

"'Later, a tame dog with a brass collar on his neck was taken from an ice-floe. Later still, by a few months, a small box and a snow-shoe drifted ashore. In your year 1890, the corpse of a white man, clothed in furs, was found on the beach, and the next morning two bodies of what are now known to have been Esquimaux, were found. As we lived on the ocean front, we knew whence these came. At this the State took up the work, made an appropriation, organised a party, and, well,' said he, 'they abundantly equipped an expedition, put me in charge, and I am here on my return to Cavitorus, after a five years' tour, covering the countries of all the outer globe.'"

What masterly logic! What skill in the marshalling of details!

"Well," adds Leo Bergin, soliloquizing, "if it is true, and it must be, for I am going there, how much stranger than fiction!"

The notes continue:--

"The captain inquired about the harbors along the coast of Cavitorus; the Boston man inquired if there were any gold mines; the parson, how high the Shadowas built their church spires; and the engineer, what motive power was used in their transportation.

"To these Mr. Oseba answered: 'I fear, if I should tell you one half the truth about these things we should be "discovered," to our sorrow.'

"The hour was late, and as all seemed dazed by the recital, the party dispersed, to bed,--

'To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub.'"

BOILING IT DOWN.

Well, that is rich! Leo had to cut it short, but he saved me a lot of trouble. Let's see. Here is a lot of interesting details--interesting if life were not so short--but I'll have to "boil it down," for "spice" is the word.

The two adventurers left the _Irene_ at Amsterdam, ran to Hamburg, where they remained over winter, and being joined by Oseba's fellow-adventurers, they took a small steamer sent as a supply ship for a polar party "frozen up" in the seas north of Spitzbergen. Disembarking, they joined a party for the journey further north, intending to strike the open sea at a known point. As would be expected, "the cold was intense," but the party was splendidly equipped, and progress, for polar travel, was rapid.

"Oseba," say the notes, "had recourse to a magazine he had supplied for the purpose on his outward journey. Here were supplies of condensed food, articles of raiment that bid defiance to cold, instruments which by reflection converted light into warmth, and various scientific appliances, some that practically rendered the party immune from cold, and others that aided them in meeting many dangers."

Leo Bergin had not a reputation for underestimating the trials of any adventure in which he embarked, but taking all in all, it seems from his report that, under the lead of this wizard from "Symmes' Hole," a visit to the jumping-off place at the north could be made with little inconvenience or risk to life or health.

Only once in fifty pages of notes does Leo Bergin complain of hardship. Not once does he express any regrets, and he never once loses faith in his master. Only once does he say "the hardships are severe," and then he adds, "but the genius of Oseba has made us so immune from Nature's blasts, that, on the main point, we are almost comfortable."

There were seven of the returning party, five of the nine friends, who, five years before, had crossed these frozen plains with Oseba, and the two "star" adventurers.

Considering the tales written by North Pole hunters, the incidents of this journey, from 80° over the "oval" or verge, to 60° inside, are hardly worthy of extensive comment. So I'll throw the whole journey across these trackless fields of ice and snow into the waste-paper basket, or, better still, leave them here, consigned to more certain oblivion.

Had Leo Bergin been a jester, a thousand richer tales than were ever written by those who, in search of fame, have joined the throngs that left their bones in the unknown regions of the North, could have been found in these candid notes,

"But Truth is a jewel so rich and so rare, When found should be cherished with martyr-like care."

So I shall metaphorically skip some fifty of Leo Bergin's pages, and take up the story where the party arrived in the small but picturesque harbor, on the shores of which stands the City of Eurania, the capital of Cavitorus--just over the "oval."

Over five long years had passed, since the sage Oseba, the idol of Cavitorus, and his nine brave friends had been commissioned to explore the outer world, in search of truth, in search of laws or customs by which the Shadowas might be more wisely guided, or to find a country to which it might be possible, wise and well, to send a colony of their children. Four had perished, and these were to be fittingly mourned; but "the conquering heroes come," and they were to be fittingly welcomed, and as their approach had been heralded, thousands of richly-dressed people thronged the "water front," and the beautiful city was in gala-day attire. The description of the streets, and fountains, and parks, and statues of gold, and other eye-ravishing objects, are dwelt upon in lavish detail, but "want of space," and the love of ease, admonish me to "blue pencil" many pages of this fancy fabric.

The superb personality and the gorgeous attire of the people, amazed the practical Leo Bergin. I will here venture a quotation, then again "boil it down."

He says:--

"The appearance of the people, as they crowd without confusion along and away back the shore line, is most striking. They seem over-tall and very symmetrical in form, and they move as gracefully as trained actors. They have finely-chiselled features, deep, rather large and expressive eyes, slightly bronzed complexions, and in every curious look, gaze, or expression, there is an easy, modest dignity, such as I have never before seen, even among the rarest few. In every face there is a deep and real joy; but of enthusiasm, emotionalism, or sensationalism, there is really none. This passion of the animal has gone, and the pleasures of the intellect have re-moulded the countenance. The face has become the mirror of an exalted soul. On no countenance is there seen gravity, on none hilarity.

"Seeing no sadness, I said, 'Where are the friends of the four who perished?'

"Alas! under their system none can know father or mother, sister or brother, son or daughter. All are children of the State. In the success of any one, there can be but a common joy; in failure, but a common sorrow."

What nonsense, to talk of such a society! People who forget their own children? But Herbert Spencer tells us of a people among whom the men had more affection for the children of their sisters than for those of their own wives! Mayhap, Herbert was wrong, for this seems unnatural. Mayhap, Herbert was right, for what we call "natural" is really but custom. However, "maybe" there were "reasons" in that case--experience.

Leo continues:--

"The attire, too, of these people was 'gorgeous beyond description.' Array all the royalties, all the nobility, all the Popes and the Cardinals, with all the courtly favorites and all the Rajahs and robber chieftains of all the Indies, and all the flunkies, the fops and the fools of all the capitals, great and small, of the pretentious upper world, and marshal them for comparison in ranks facing these, and they of the upper world would seem but a pitiable show, or at best an amusing burlesque.

"Silks and splendid fabrics, not loud and gay, but rich and rare; jewels resplendent with Nature's lustre, but worn as modestly as to seem but articles of common use, were present in enormous profusion. For jewels, for articles of personal adornment, for ornaments or trimmings of wearing apparel, gold was too common, cheap and vulgar. In carriages, in furniture, in statuary, in architectural adornments, it was in use by the ton--yes, by the cord. Ye gods, if the Americans knew this!

"Here, as superstition has not blighted, monopoly has not diverted, despotism has not robbed, war has not wasted, vice has not withered, wealth has grown with the ages.

"As our whole party were attired in very modest European dress, we must have appeared rather uncouth to the people, but the absence of apparent curiosity or inquisitiveness, was surprising."

The notes continue:--

"These people must be adepts in electrical science, for the air was full of 'floaters,' or flying machines, each seating one or more persons. They were as thick as blackbirds in a Missouri cornfield."

He noticed an entire absence of children from the throngs of people, but soon an open space was formed by the crowd falling back, when several thousand "youngsters" of both sexes, and all the tender ages, came marching down the wharf, in charge of a few modest-looking superintendents. As they came to a halt, the people raised their hats in salutation, when the children, seemingly all of one accord, bent a knee in acknowledgment.

The notes, observations, and running comments of the observing Leo are worthy of full perusal, and indeed of preservation, but as I am hurrying on to a definite purpose, brevity seems to be a necessity.

The reception of the party by the City Council and a joint committee from the great college, of which Leo learned that Amoora Oseba was the head, was most impressive, and when the master of ceremonies waved his hand as a signal, there was an unanimous shout of "Welcome home, Oseba! Welcome back to Eurania!"

This was the only noisy demonstration. "Every face," says the chronicler, "looked respectful, grateful, gratified, and happy, but there were no fire-crackers or bad breath."

Is not that marvellous? Think of such a people! Think of an occasion of like character in London, New York--ah, ye gods!--in Paris or Berlin! I wonder if this fellow was not spreading it on rather thick?

But, listen:--

"We were escorted to our carriages, one hundred gorgeous electro-motors, literally made of gold and ivory, and adorned with what appeared to be precious stones, but what proved to be common, indeed. We were driven to the temple--and such a temple! The Palace of Westminster, the Vatican, or the Washington Capitol would be 'nowhere.'"

But I must "boil it down." He tells us that the ceremony at the temple was "splendid, but brief"; that the reception of Amoora Oseba was sincere, and that the proceedings of the meeting of over five years previous, commissioning him for the perilous journey, were read.

"Resolutions of regret" for the loss of members of the party were passed, and a meeting was appointed at which Amoora Oseba should make his report to a select committee, and through such committee to the people of Eurania and Cavitorus.

Speaking in much praise of the almost depressing dignity of the ceremony, the notes record that at the close of the announcement, the chairman read the commission under which Oseba had acted, and on the performance of which authorised duty he was to report. It read as follows:--

"City of Eurania, Cavitorus, "Year 20993, P.C.

"To the well-beloved Amoora Oseba, Chief, National Academy of Science.

"We, the representatives of the State, on behalf of all the Shadowas, believing that the time is approaching when, according to our traditions, we are to be reunited with our brethren of the outer world, and recognising the necessity of discovering a broader field for the expansion of our race, hereby authorise you to proceed to the discovery of any country, to study the condition of any people on this or any other world, to learn lessons of wisdom whereby we may be better governed, or 'spy out' a land to which, if possible, we may desire to send a colony of our surplus population, and to report at your discretion. The time, the necessary means, the associates, and all other matters pertaining to this unique enterprise, will be granted by the State at your discretion, and may the gods favor your undertaking, and send you back to us with improved health, increased knowledge, and hopes that may guide the Shadowas in their future struggles for social progress.

"Signed by a hundred of the National Committee."

My word! pretty good billet had this Amoora Oseba. No wonder Leo Bergin was captivated by the fellow. But that journey over the "oval," as he calls it--excuse me--it makes me shiver.

Well, according to the notes, it's a week before that meeting takes place, a week to be thrown away, to wait. Queer, it seems almost as though I was there. Let's see if there is anything in his notes to bridge the time.

Yes, here he relates what a thrilling adventure he had in a "soar" over the fifty-story houses in an electric air motor; that the buildings are made of indestructible material; how their steel does not rust; how light their machinery; how beautiful the girls. Ah, yes! And then he says: "It might be nice not to have to 'ask papa,' for here no girl has a father, a big brother, or a pretty sister--which may be convenient." But from the luxury of a mother-in-law, the Shadowas are forever cut off.

"The freedom of association between the sexes," he says, "is surprising, but the social dignity and decorum are even more surprising. The country, with every inch cultivated, is beautiful, and the aspect of Nature, especially in the night, with the moon sweeping along the opposite rim of the earth, the sweeping of the sun along the horizon, the reflection of light from unknown sources, the wonderful play of electric phenomena, are too awe-inspiring for description.

"Gold is more plentiful than iron is with us, and platinum more plentiful than silver;" and he accounts for the great quantity of these heavy metals on scientific theories. "As for diamonds and other precious stones, it is only a matter of 'grinding;' but the 'brilliants' are more beautiful than with us, owing to the peculiarities of the light."

What fairy tales! And yet we don't "know." Nature tells some strange stories. Yes, and so do people. There is something amusing or interesting in the notes of every day, but let the week slide, for we want to hear the report--we want to hear what Amoora Oseba thinks of the people of the "upper crust."

"Oh! wad some power the giftie gie us, To see oursels as ithers see us, It wad frae monie a blunder free us."

Possibly.

Here we come to that great meeting. Let's get down to date again, and Leo Bergin's notes.

He says:--

"Eurania, Cavitorus, "October 5th.

"'To-morrow,' yes.

"'To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death."

"To-morrow! the great event opens. How like a dream it all seems. But,

"Dreams in their development have breath, And tears and tortures, and the touch of joy. They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts, They take a weight from off our waking toils. ... They speak, Like symbols of the future.'

"Ah, this dreamy reverie! It brings back the vanished years, for

''Twas just one year ago to-day, That I remember well,'

when I began this record, at sea, on board the S.S. _Irene_. I wonder if Sir Marmaduke ever thinks of me. If he does, he thinks me--well, it doesn't much matter now. He was a good sort, however, and I will never forget him."

Kind of you, Leo Bergin. By golly! that fellow has a heart, and a head, too, for that matter, for he is rarely far wrong. He continues:--

"Yes, he was a generous old soul. Rich, good-natured and careless, but just. He read everything, but--well, perhaps if I had read as much as he, I would have thought and known as little."

Leo Bergin, I swear I had rather you had forgotten me. That's a nice way to speak of an absent friend. There is evidently a coolness between us. Yes, a cool belt, so I will keep my temper.

Proceed, Leo:--

"Had a note from Venesta to-day, and I don't know whether it gives me more pleasure or sadness. Think of courting a girl, who never had a father or a mother, a sister or a brother! Daughter of the State! Marry the daughter of the State! Ye gods, what a mother-in-law!

"I have idled away the day, and how can I make amends, save by confession and the forming of new resolutions? Well,

"'I resolve! yes, I resolve! And then I sit me down And watch that resolution die. But, "To-morrow"--'

"Eurania, Cavitorus, "October 6th.

"How balmy the air! How grandly the old sun sweeps along the rim of this great world! For one such scene New York would give a 'million,' and every eye would dim with watching the face of the flaming wheel, and every neck would ache, and every soul would shudder with awe. But, would not the Shadowas like to see Old Sol passing over their heads every twenty-four hours, and give them three-hundred and sixty-five days during the year, instead of having him whirl about their heads, hip high, giving one night seven months long, and but a hundred and sixty days of variable length? But it's all in being used to things.

"Well, I must off to the meeting. I am invited to the platform, and I shall have plenty to record this evening, for to-day is nineteen hours long. Oh, how weird!

"Later, evening.

"What o'clock is it? I don't know. I know it was nineteen hours after the old sun first flitted around Mt. Lena, that it finally retired, and how can a 'new chum' keep track of his running on such erratic lines? To make it more confusing, this is the self same old sun that mine eyes have been looking upon for, lo! these thirty wasted years. Who would have thought that sedate old watchman could ever play such pranks? Then, too, on the same little old world! Am I waking? Am I sane, or is this but a hideous delirium?

"I feel sure that all is unreal, that I am the sport of some jesting destiny--but I will play my part; then, if the vision be not a mockery, I will not have wasted too much time.

"What an eventful day! Yet, as long as it has been, or even seems to have been, every hour has been crowded with bewildering incidents--only bewildering to me, however, for how unlike the hurry, the confusion, the bustle, the noise and hilarity seen on such occasions on the upper crust! How different from a horse-race in England, an election-day in France, or a Fourth of July in America!

"What a happy, orderly, handsome, and amiable people, these. Even their Deities are amiable. Their temples of worship breathe, not only hope for the future, but appreciation for the blessings of to-day. With them, it is not a crown of glory afterwhile, but a living joy. Without the sorrow of Gautama, the gods of this under-world are as loving and as amiable. But why should not the Deities be amiable?

"'God made man,' the preacher saith, 'From a handful of dust, by a whiff of breath.' 'No,' say the sages, 'man made God, From nothing at all, by creative nod; Organ for organ, and limb for limb, In the image of man, created he Him.

"These people evidently made their Gods, for they admit it. I wonder if we made ours?"

Careful Leo!

"What a wonderful city is Eurania! What a wonderful country is Cavitorus! What a wonderful people are the Shadowas!

"But that meeting! The calm dignity of those four hundred Councillors of State was amazing. What marvellous dispassionate interest is taken by the enormous throngs of people, who occupy the main body and galleries of the Temple.

"Proud Oseba! Well may I call thee 'master.' Oh! how I wish the appreciative Sir Marmaduke were here."

Yes, Leo, I would like to have been with you, but, maybe, that would have meant that I would be with you now, out of the cold, poor fellow!

But here the fellow strings it out as though our days were also nineteen hours long, and our lives a thousand years. He keeps us on so high a key, that we begin to wonder what there is in it for him. I will "blue pencil." For the once impatient Leo Bergin has forgotten, I fear, the customs of this upper world, and that every ear is attuned to the popular rush.

If you've something good to say, Get a move! If you'd have us go your way, Get a move! If it's goods, fling out your sample, If religion, show it's ample, But--Get a move.

'Pon my word! Leo's "borrowed lines" inspire me with a poetic vein. But Leo is becoming as tedious as an Australian drought, a West Coast "wet spell," or a debate on a "no-confidence motion," so I shall here draw my critical pencil through many lines. Leo Bergin is clearness itself, and from his language there flows, to the intelligent brain, a true conception of the situation; but for the sake of brevity--from vanity, maybe--I shall condense, in my own language.

Well, at the appointed time and place the people assembled. The four-hundred members of the Council of State occupied favoured seats in front of the platform, while many thousands of the citizens filled the stalls and ample galleries. It was an impressive scene. The meeting once called to order, "Music, such as heard outside of Eurania or heaven was never, burst upon the ear."

That's Leo's, but I shall be more prosy and more brief.

When the last strains of music had died away, and the applause ceased, the chairman arose, and after giving a brief but comprehensive review of the national traditions, the discoveries and events that led to these unparalleled adventures, he re-read the commission under which Amoora Oseba acted, and impressed upon the audience the importance of the report from the lips of Eurania's most gifted son, and the world's most intrepid explorer.

The chairman said, in opening the proceedings, that while little real attention had been given to the vague traditions that had floated down the centuries, there had always been a feeling among the Shadowas that they were in a most peculiar situation, and that science would some time solve the mystery that seemed to hang over them.

He said, since the dawn of civilisation there was an "absolute knowledge" that they were on the inner surface of a hollow planet, and there was a vague belief that there were like beings on the outer surface.

He explained that, through the enterprise of the Council of State, and the intrepidity of Amoora Oseba and his brave comrades, that question, the most momentous in the long history of Cavitorus, it was hoped, had been solved, and they had met to hear a report on that most interesting matter.

He said, as the Committee had given the most careful attention to the books, maps, charts, and globes brought by the returned party, and having had the generous assistance of Oseba himself, and Leo Bergin, a native of the upper world, they had familiarized themselves somewhat with the geography, history, customs and manners of the various nations of the upper world, by the assistance of the views to be presented, a fair understanding would be easily reached. Then, too, as the press had been generous and enterprising, he thought the people were quite prepared for an intelligent appreciation of the gifted traveller's oration. "Mr. Oseba, the father of the new philosophy," said he, "will now speak to us, as to his children."

However, as the people had requested that the poetess Vauline be permitted to ask for occasional explanations, this was provided for.

Here the record tells us--I have boiled out twenty pages of delightful "toffy"--that the chairman introduced Amoora Oseba as: "The most intrepid explorer the world ever knew," at the same time inviting Leo Bergin and the other members of the returned party to the platform.

Of this episode of the ceremony, the modest Leo Bergin says: "I was embarrassed."

A fine canvas, some sixty feet square, had previously been raised at the end of the hall, and, with the assistance of attendants, a large instrument, from which could be thrown moveable views of the earth's surface, was properly adjusted. With an explanation all too brief, as Leo himself thinks, the first picture was thrown on the wall. It was our planet, represented by a globe forty feet in diameter, revolving slowly on its axis. It was a true model of our globe, on Symmes' theory, the angle to the axis being 23°, with the north opening plainly visible, and Cavitorus was easily located.

This, we are told, was entirely novel, even to the Committee; but so skilful are the mechanics of Eurania, that from a small model or instrument taken across by the party, this wonderful piece of complicated mechanism was perfected.

What a revelation this must have been, bursting so unexpectedly upon the astonished gaze of these strange people!

But as in the magic hand of the "loved and lost" Leo Bergin there are both pen and brush, I here invoke his genius, for my pen falters.

He says:--

"As the vast assembly gazed in almost breathless awe, the master said: 'This is Oliffa, our own planet, as it is hurled through space at 68,000 miles an hour, with this brief forty feet expanded to 8,000 miles.'

"I looked into the faces of the most intellectual, the least emotional, and most observing people I have ever seen, and yet no pen, no brush, no imagination could reproduce that scene. Considering the intelligence and the unemotional character of this vast audience, the evidence of surprise was really alarming. For once, these people acted almost like we fools of the 'upper crust.'"

Humph! it makes me crawl.

"The sitting was adjourned."

I'm glad of it, for it makes me shiver. But it seems to me, considering the cool intellectuality of the Shadowas, that Leo Bergin is drawing that rather long. Let's see! These Shadowas are a very intellectual, a very thoughtful, a very cultivated and civilised people. But let us reason this out. They were utilitarian; amiable as their environment, and learned, in what was necessary for their happiness, or within their reach. Yes, but nine-tenths of the universe--of the outer world--was shut off from them. They, for 21,000 years, had been on one side--the inside--of a great tube. Practically back of them, the world lifted abruptly up; front of them, they could but see above the rim of the bowl of which they were well toward the bottom.

The field of observation was narrow, the visible facts of Nature were few. At the near opening of the "tube" there was eternal ice and snow, an endless expanse of frozen mystery; while at the other, there could sometimes be seen many weird clusters of stars, but, usually, only clouds and storms, and desert and mountains, and dangerous whirlpools.

They had no telescopes; their point of view was too narrow for the study of astronomy, and, as all thoughts, all ideas, all conceptions of all natural objects must be formed from observation--from sensuous impressions--how could they draw anything like correct conclusions regarding the outside worlds? Intellectuality does not always, if ever, mean universal, or even very great, knowledge.

Well, then, maybe Leo was even drawing it mildly. Maybe, a vision so strange, a view of a known thing from so surprisingly unexpected a standpoint, at a time, too, when the public imagination was at a high tension, presenting so strange a phenomenon, would affect the fine but impressive mind more than it would the less thoughtful. Maybe, I say, Leo is right, but it seems a little lofty.

But let's back to Leo's notes. He says:--

"After lunch"--that sounds familiar--"the meeting recommenced, and the people, having conversed fully and freely over the matter, seemed in their normal condition.

"Oseba turned the globe slowly, explained the nature of the earth and of the sun, why the days were 'thusly'; then the 'outside' conditions, and why it was not all eternal frost, as they had imagined. He showed the map of land and water, how there were on the outside of our planet, or Oliffa, 1,400,000,000 of people--a few of them very decent fellows--and suggested the enormous importance of communicating with them.

"Then he showed a globe, with continents, islands, seas, rivers, and the geographical divisions of the land as claimed by nations, empires, states, and communities, making suitable remarks, that his impressions might lack nothing in clearness.

"He explained that the varied blocks and patches, distinguished by colored lines, marked the 'possessions' and claims of various races, nations, or political communities. He here described the enormous waste of water, and mountains, and uninhabitable land, and how little really desirable country there was on the outer surface of Oliffa. Yet, he told his audience that the Outeroos did not dwell in peace together, but divided the land according to might, and lived isolated in semi-hostile communities. 'These,' said he, 'are the lands, the countries, and the peoples I have "discovered."'

"But, he said, while the nature and necessity, the hopes, the aspirations, and the desires of all men were much the same, there existed on the outer surface of Oliffa such a variety in customs and manners adopted for the accomplishment of desired ends, that only by a visit to, and a study of, all countries, could the object of his mission be fulfilled, so for five years he and his companions had wandered, observed, and taken notes, and now it was only by reviewing the situation with some detail that an intelligent understanding could be conveyed.

"Here he pointed out on the maps the localities of the various countries, briefly describing the climate, soil, and style of government in general, and said he would now discuss a little more fully the merits of the various countries and peoples--with his conclusions from the inquiry--for his discoveries had been important and many.

"He reminded his audience of the prime purpose. His mission was to gain from the outer world a knowledge that might aid them in the better management of their domestic affairs; to discover, if possible, a country to which they might send a colony of the surplus population, and to find a people with whom they could open communications, that they might become co-workers to the mutual happiness of the newer and the older inhabitants of the world.

"Oseba," says the record, "re-arranged his instruments, saying that he would show us, as occasion required, the globe as a whole or a sectional map. He would begin his review with a country, probably the oldest settled, and certainly the most populous, on the outer surface of Oliffa--that of the Chinese Empire."

Here, I may remark that I have carefully studied the notes of poor Leo Bergin. They are full, carefully revised, and show a masterly understanding of the situation, but they are too copious for even extensive quotation. From many closely and well-written pages, the notes report Oseba's orations, with hardly a break or comment. For the sake of brevity, I shall appropriate Oseba's story, and, save by a few pointed quotations, I shall use my own language in the review of the next scene. I realise that by this method the story will be marred, the language will be less picturesque and expressive, and probably less correct, but it will be economy of space, and, what is of importance to me, "economy" in the expenditure of intellectual force. That is worthy of consideration!

The imaginative Leo seemed to be absorbed in the changing scenes of the unique situation. During a lull in the proceedings he notes:--

"How like a dream! Oh, my soul, how I do hope!"

But, probably being again confronted by that "if," he seems to hang his head, halt, and ponder, for he writes:--

"Hopes, like joys and promising children, grow into regrets, or wither and die."

_SCENE IV._

FIRST "DISCOVERY."

SIZING UP AH SIN, AND LU.

The sage Oseba, after locating China on the globe, threw a view of the map of the Empire on the wall. He explained that this country "embraced" 4,000,000 square miles of the surface of Oliffa, and contained about 400,000,000 "souls," or nearly one-third of all the Outeroos. But this includes the Mandarins, who are not supposed to have "souls."

With amusing speech, he reviewed the history, the social, political, and industrial conditions of this "peculiar" people.

It was in China that Oseba became first acquainted with the aggressiveness, the pretentiousness, and the real power of the European or Occidental Nations. As a race, these "foreign devils" were taller in stature, stronger of limb, and lighter in complexion, and they had better opinions of themselves than the Orientals. Conceit is a strong factor in all these mighty games.

The clergymen, or missionaries, were among his first acquaintances from over the seas.

A mischievous consular clerk, he says, who seemed to have a grievance, used to sing:--

"They came in shoals, To save the souls, Of Hop, Lee, Sing, and Wu. They gathered gear, Both far and near, As you or I would do."

These "solemn men," as Oseba called them, apologising for the digression, came first of their countrymen, not for "filthy lucre," but to "save all the sons of Confucius and to take them to Heaven, where, together, they could sing and associate forever, and forever, and forever." "This," said Oseba, "seemed kind of them," but he soon learned that the nations who sent these agents to prepare the social situation for "the sweet by-and-bye," were "not at home," to Hop, Lee, Sing, or Wu, during their brief stay on the surface of Oliffa.

"We love you," said the genteel agents of a hundred disputing creeds, "go with us to a land that is better than day."

"Velly well," says Hop, Lee, Sing, and Wu, "we likely go 'Melica."

"Nay, nay!" says the good shepherd, "afterwhile, in the sweet by-and-bye. 'Tis of a better world we speak--patience, meekness, and love."

"Why," asked the poetess Vauline, "are the other Outeroos not 'at home' to the Chinese while they are quite alive?"

With a smile, Oseba said, "The Chinese, my children, are very industrious and frugal."

"Are they an inferior race?" asked the poetess Vauline.

"They are 'different,'" said Oseba, "but every race, people, nation, tribe, or creed on Oliffa, thinks itself 'superior' to any and all others. Vanity is absent--with few of the Outeroos."

At considerable length, he reviewed the political, social, and industrial situation of China, and said:--

"All the outer world might learn lessons of patient industry from China, but for us, there is nothing in China."

After a brief review of the social and political situation of each, he dismissed all the countries of Continental Asia, but he said Hongkong and Singapore, two of the world's modern wonders, had done much to apprise the world of the hidden treasures in these Tartarean regions.

He drew attention to his discovery of Japan, as it appeared on the map with Asia, and then removing this, he threw the globe on the canvas. He dwelt in almost raptures on the beauty of the country he was now to examine. Of the Japanese, of whose condition he would first inquire, he said they had an old history. They had been isolated for many centuries. They dreamed in their narrow world, played in their little backyards, worshipped their monarch, and had been happy; but recently, touched by the magic wand of modern civilisation, they aroused, and having for a brief spell cast about them, they "girded up their loins"--tightened their belts--and hurried to join the front ranks of the army of progress, with an enthusiasm, and even a wisdom, never before known on this little globe.

Once aroused by the exhilarating thrill of progress, they as readily adjusted themselves to the peculiar conditions of their natural environments as children to a new playground. The mountains suggest liberty, the seas adventure, and to the fearless adventurers of those inhabiting the indented shores of the water-front, are the Outeroos indebted for all the blessings of modern progress--for civilisation is the ripened fruit of ocean commerce.

"But," said the sage Oseba, "the present 42,000,000 Japs have but 147,000 square miles of dirt, half of which is waste. Under the delirium of modern conditions the population is rapidly increasing, and thus are the inhabitants already beginning to crowd each other. The nation is becoming wealthy, while the people are becoming poor. The real estate on little Oliffa is already staked out, and conspicuously adorned with that strange device--'keep off the grass.' There is no vacant corner for the surplus population, my children, and the Japs are land animals."

The sage Oseba told his audience that "Many nations among the Outeroos regarded the 'Japs' as an 'inferior race,' but if the achievements of man is the measure of the soul and the intellect, the Japs have no superiors on little Oliffa, for her recent progress pales the lustre of the world's authentic history; but,

'If the zenith of strife, sheds a mystical lore, And coming events cast their shadows before,'"

said the sage, as he tortured the immortal Thomas, the brilliancy of Japanese story may soon wane, and as, owing to lack of room, her only path to glory is through unfashionable war, the prospects are not rosy. Though that nation may, for a long time, remain flamboyant, the people may soon writhe in a lower misery than 'pagan Japan' ever knew.

However, should the little brown man clip the claws from the Russian bear, and send him back, lame and growling, to his northern lair, and then arouse China, and, by the skill of his wonderful capacity, organize it, Eastern Asia may remember a few thousands of the "insults" heaped upon her people during the last half-century, and conclude to test the question of "superiority" by other than industrial methods.

Of the known Monarchies of Asia, he said, the people were ignorant and impoverished, the officials were insolent and corrupt, the rulers were vicious and despotic, and the governments rotten beyond cure.

As to India, the sage Oseba spoke with sympathy. "Britain," he said, "is the only country capable of governing an 'inferior' race. She has done much to rescue the country from periodic, if not from almost constant war, and famine, and despair; but the 'people,' the offspring of thousands of years of misrule and oppression, have reached a condition of crystallized non-progressiveness, and they must finally die out, as they cannot adjust themselves to modern conditions. Its past is sad, its future is hopeless. It will long be a country in which a few cunning bees may load themselves with golden honey, that their far away hives may be filled; but slowly and sadly that strange brown people must pass away. They have reached their ultimate. In them the oak and the steel, necessary for the contests of the future, are wanting."

EUROPE, SOMEWHAT "DISCOVERED."

The globe was so adjusted as to give a perfect view of the Continent of Europe, and, in interesting speech, were the countries and their peoples described.

Referring to the influence of environment, the orator explained how the comparative smallness of this continent, the fertility of the soil, the variety of plant and animal life, the mountains, and plains, and indented shore lines, with enormous stretch of water-front, together with its extensive river systems and healthful, but erratic climatic conditions, marked this as the garden and nursery for the most active, sturdy, intelligent, and emotional of all peoples on the globe.

Continental Europe covers an area of 3,500,000 square miles, and supports, in various degrees of opulence and wretchedness, some 380,000,000 people--chiefly men, women, and clergymen--with 20,000,000 men in "uniform," who seem well seized with their own importance. These latter are very influential personages, as they are equipped with very persuasive arguments.

The orator explained that the many-hued and irregular patches on the map represented the possessions and the rule, of as many nations, all of whom had good opinions of themselves, and stood ready to back their pretensions.

These countries were ruled by persons who were fortunate in the selection of parents, or who, at least, were furnished with proper birth certificates.

But with her many governments and nationalities, he said, there was constant confusion. There were fear and oppression, for all these imaginary lines had to be guarded. The armies had to be kept up; the 5,000,000 soldiers must be in constant readiness for slaughter, for only by this means could the people be sufficiently impressed with the validity of the birth certificate.

Asked by the poetess Vauline, what these so-called soldiers did for a living, Mr. Oseba answered:--

"They kill folks, for, short as are the lives of the Outeroos among the superior nations, wholesale murder is the most honored of all pursuits."

Oseba said: "All the civilised nations keep these armed men, whose duty it is to kill somebody--to whom they may never have been introduced--when their ruler has a grievance, and has no time to attend to the matter himself.

"These armies, too, are potent in diplomatic controversies. When a monarch has a little misunderstanding with one of his class from a neighboring paddock, he says in deep tones:--

"'Sire, these are the facts, and if you don't believe it, Sire, look!'--and he points to his ready battalions.

"To a people who never knew of war or poverty--among whom probably not one man would care to be killed, or could find a person to accommodate him if he should, these statements seemed most amazing."

Mr. Oseba concluded, from the conspicuousness of military show, that every toiler in Europe carried a soldier on his back. And worse--he had to feed him, to clothe him, to pay him, and then to constantly submit to his insolence. From every home and fireside in Europe the most sturdy supporter, and the best loved one, was taken for target practice; and the burden imposed upon industry for showy barbarism, was crushing the whole of Europe and driving the people into revolution, anarchy and ruin.

"Tell us," said the poetess Vauline, "are you speaking of the superior, the Christian or civilised peoples?"

"Rather," said the Sage, "for only the Christian nations could enjoy, and only the superior nations could afford such heroic entertainments. As a fact, the size of the army and range of the gun are the true tests of a country's civilisation and 'superiority.'

"Strange, my children, but the 'superior' peoples, those worshipping Him who said, 'Thou shalt not kill,' have the longest guns, and the strongest battalions, and they are most ready to kill on the least provocation."

The audience, say the notes, was most impressed when told that these arguments--loaded--were aimed by the most civilised nations at each other. Oseba continues:--"The guns and the military show, help to amuse the people; they regulate home prices, and guard the dignity of the managers. They are practically the 'keep off the grass' notice; but, as a fact, my children, they are kept to-day more to overawe the people who pay the bills than to ward off any external danger.

"But there is a marked difference between the Oriental and the Occidental. The Oriental is selfish--he wants peace, and is indifferent to the fate of others. The Oriental don't care what a man believes, or what god he worships, so long as he pays the liken, and moves on; while the superior races are deeply concerned about the soul, and they want to discover all other people, and get them to join them--afterwhile.

"As social units, the Occidentals are more progressive and free, but less secure; they are more sympathetic, but less just; more interested in others, but less tolerant; and more inclined to action, and less to meditation than the Orientals.

"While there is a vast difference in the degree of oppression in Continental Europe, between class assumption, military despotism, official insolence, and creed interference, save for those for whom custom would render hell salubrious, there is no room for a liberty-loving man--especially is it no place for a people with the lofty aspirations of the Shadowas. But, oh, the poverty, the misery, the humiliating sorrow! Oh, my children! If the faith of those pretentious mortals be not folly, if there be somewhere an all-powerful God of Love and Justice, if kneeling at His throne there be hosts of saints and angels, who behold the bloody conflicts, see the widow's tears and the agonizing gasp of want; who hear the sighs of the over-worked slave, the groans of poverty and the prayers that go up to heaven from the white lips of innocence, let the Shadowas implore the masters of Europe's millions to grant mercy, or the beseeching hearts of heaven will break, and the tears of the angels will drown the world."

But, like Uphus swinging the doors to welcome the dawn of a new day, we turn to more pleasing scenes.

_SCENE V._

THE BRITISH ISLES DISCOVERED.

At this stage of the proceedings the Sage Oseba seemed to be in fine form and in most cheerful spirits.

He remarked that he was now to give his people a brief view of the "Country of Countries," an island region, just off the humming hive of uniformed Europe. Here the globe revolved until the British Isles were conspicuously in view.

"This," said Oseba, "of all the fertile dirt on the surface of Oliffa, is the most interesting. This, among the countries of the Outeroos, is the classic land of liberty, the sheet-anchor of Europe for more than three hundred years. These rock-bound Isles, with a fertile soil, a salubrious climate, indented shores--fortunately placed geographically--are by nature the best suited for the development of the ideal man of any spot on the surface of Oliffa, and having been peopled by sturdy tribes, all the suggestive hopes of Nature have been realised."

He told his people that the British Isles embraced 124,000 square miles, and contained 40,000,000 inhabitants; and that, on these few acres, there were more muscle and brain, and intellectual force and stubbornness and haughty pretension, than on any other spot of like dimensions on the surface of Oliffa.

"These sturdy Britons, my children, who have resistlessly held these historic Islands against all comers for many centuries, have done more to elevate, to educate, to emancipate, to civilise and to unite humanity; to free the brain from superstition, the limbs from fetters, and the world from bondage, than any other nation or race that ever inscribed its achievements on the pages of human history.

"Britain, my children, has conquered many foes, but her chief glory has been her conquests in the arts of peace. She has conquered climate, and famine, and pestilence, and the idolatry that would crucify the new upon the mouldering cross of the old régime.

"Britain has given Oliffa its industrial and commercial methods, the tone of its present civilisation, and she is rapidly giving to the whole race her erstwhile scorned language, and in this there seems a magic spell that infects all who imbibe its spirit with a burning desire for liberty. To lisp the English tongue, is to feel--a king.

"Let me tell you a little story, my children, of the most interesting, the most wonderful--yes, even the most marvellous of all the doings of man on this most erratic little planet.

"These British Isles are separated from the Continent of Europe by a damp streak, and they are inhabited by the mixed offspring of a dozen sturdy and virile tribes, all from the northern water-front. All these virile tribes, whether natives or invaders, were strongly imbued with the spirit of liberty--as they understood it. They loved peace--if they had to fight for it. They loved liberty--to squeeze the other fellow. But in the fibre of these people there was a sublime stubbornness that often made things awkward for the authorities.

"Everybody wanted to boss, so nobody would wear the collar. Everybody wanted to be free, but the feeling was so unanimous that there was abundance of officers but no privates, so it took many centuries of disputes, and quarrels, and conflicts, and wars, before they had accumulated sufficient 'grey matter' to comprehend the fact that civilised government is a compromise; that where any can be oppressed, none can be secure; and that liberty, which must halt at the gate of the other fellow's paddock, is the inalienable right of man.

"But the British can learn, and they have so well mastered this problem that the highest now yield the most ready obedience to the law, and the strongest most readily defend the rights of the weak. Though it took Britain, with her sturdy conceit, centuries to learn this, and though she, by her fibre and her position as a coloniser, was the legitimate successor of Phoenicia and Greece, she was rather backward about coming forward, for after the discovery of America, when all the other nations were madly participating in western exploits, she stood aloof for over a hundred years to complete her preparations.

"Then she came with a lunch basket, she came with both feet, she came to stay, and her achievements find no parallel in the history of human progress. Before she opened her foreign real estate office, the new world had been parcelled out. Others had staked their claims--many over-lapping--and there were plentiful notices to 'keep off the grass,' but she was undaunted.

"In 1607 she planted her first colony in America. Soon there were thirteen--an unlucky number--then she foolishly taxed them into revolt, and here she learned a valuable lesson. Since then, she has never oppressed a colony; since then, she has never taken one backward step; since then, she has gradually extended her beneficent hand over the earth, until over one-fifth of the land is painted red--her favorite hue--and over one-fourth of the human race bow a willing allegiance to her flag."

"Oh," says Leo's notes, "would not that please dear old Sir Marmaduke!"

"America, my children, of which I shall soon speak, was Britain's noblest contribution to human progress, for though the two nations have moved under different colours for more than a century, their mutual enterprise has revolutionised the industrial world, and brought humanity in touch.

"Marvel of marvels! When other nations, now in business, boasted of world-conquest, the British were but a 'handful,' inhabiting these rock-bound islands, but as mountains suggest freedom and seas adventure, looking over the waters, her daring sons went forth--not to conquer, not to exploit or to devastate, but to develop the world, and to build homes, and colonies, and states, and empires.

"If Britain took a gun in her outings--and she often did--it was to level a place for a home, a shop, or a factory. Where she plants her feet the soil becomes more fertile, and when she meets a savage, he stands more proudly erect--after the first few sermons.

"She is the motherland of America, and, by mutual efforts, the two have become the paragons of civilised progress. She saved old India from the rajahs, robbers, and priests, from famine and pestilence, and made it a paradise--as compared with its former condition. She saved strange, beloved, dreamy, half-mythical old Egypt from rot and ruin, and made it a marvel of hope and progress. She is saving 'Darkest Africa' from slavery, superstition, and fratricidal war; and, with diamonds on its golden clasps, she is handing it over to civilisation.

"She gave to civilisation Canada, with its splendid people, its fertile fields, and its stupendous 'ice-plant'; and she gave to civilisation the seven colonies of Australasia, with the most wealthy, the most commercial, the most progressive, the most advanced, educated, civilised, and free people on the whole outer surface of the planet.

"Then, to show her small respect for dirt, save as a place to fasten down upon--and her marvellous ambition for industrial development--behold! the modern commercial wonders, Hongkong and Singapore! Many nations complain of 'Britain's land-greed,' and that John Bull--as these sturdy Britons are lovingly called--always carries a bucket and a brush, and is everywhere painting the world red; but wherever the carmine shines, liberty and progress are assured. Every inch of soil wrested from darkness by British valour is handed over to civilisation--free to all comers.

"And, marvel of marvels, my children! In her more than a hundred wars--save by her mistake in striving to coerce her own children in America--she has never lost an inch of important dirt by force. And, more glorious still, every inch won from barbarism by her blood and valor, has been handed over to civilisation and human progress.

"But, no! She won much in war, which, to the infinite loss of the world, she gave back in peace.

"She took Cuba in war, restored order, and gave it back in peace. Better for the world had she kept it.

"She took by war, and gave back in peace, the Philippines, Cape Colony, Java, Sumatra, Senegal, Pondicheri, and more than twenty other valuable possessions, all to the loss of the world--and yet she has been accused of territorial avarice--of 'land hunger.'"

Right! Mr. Oseba, and had the politicians in Downing Street properly backed the sturdy British wanderers, most of Oliffa would have been painted red and done up in a shawl strap long ere this, and the Brito-Yankee race would have been in a position to guarantee peace among all nations.

"But, my children," he continued, "there are often sombre linings to many resplendent clouds, and lest you may all conclude to rush out of Cavitorus to these wonderful islands, I must show you a few of the less attractive pictures.

"Remember, that for modern civilisation among the Outeroos, the world is indebted to the colonial enterprise and success of Britain; but remember, too, that it is not always the 'colonising nations,' but the 'colonists' of the 'colonising nations,' that carry the standard of social progress to advanced grounds.

"The basis of modern colonial success, was, of course, in the fibre of the British race; but for the resistlessness of British colonial enterprise much was due to flagrant faults in Britain's domestic policy.

"We are land animals--we live on, and from the land, and Britain had but 124,000 square miles of dirt. 'Room' was scarce, so people had a 'far-away look.' But worse, a very few in the Motherland 'owned' most all this meagre surface, so people saw opportunity only in a change--for a deep love of liberty forced the evils of monopoly upon their attention.

"Well these sturdy Britons, with the mixed blood of the rugged Danes, Jutes, Celts, Saxons, Angles and others did not feel at home as guests, serfs or tenants, so they began to roam around."

The orator said he would present a few little "reasons" why the Shadowas would not care to "flock" to the British Isles, and also a review of conditions that might have had some influence in arousing the spirit of foreign adventure.

"They discovered," said he, "that of the 76,000,000 acres of dirt on the whole British Isles, one man--great only in his possessions--owned 1,350,000 acres, while another owned 460,000 acres, the two being the born owners of over 2 per cent. of the whole, upon which 40,000,000 men were compelled to live.

"They found that about two hundred families owned about half of all the land; that less than one per cent. of the people owned over 99 per cent. of the land, and that more than 90 per cent. of the people were absolutely landless.

"It is amusing, my children, to hear these sturdy British boast about 'my country,' when a few families own so much of all the land on which all must live--if they remain at home. But observing the enormous power enjoyed by the holders of vast estates in the old world, too many sought by cornering the lands, to acquire like advantages in the new, and in the correction of this ancient error, the best statesmanship of the age is still required."

Mr. Oseba proceeded to explain that as from many seemingly indefensible situations beneficent results often arise, it could hardly be doubted that the inherited curse of British landlordism has, in a most imposing "disguise," been a "blessing" to civilisation.

It impressed the thoughtful "subject" with the incomparable importance of the land to life itself, especially when population began to crowd; and it forced upon the attention, even of the thoughtless, the enormous influence and real power wielded by the possessors of large estates. The class inequalities that arose through the inheritance by the few of the source from which all must live, drove hosts of the most intelligent, sturdy, and self-reliant of the people to distant countries, and determined them to provide in the new home against the evils that had expelled them from the old.

From loathsome slime we clutch the glittering prize, And grand results from hard conditions rise.

As these emigrants loved the Motherland, they desired to remain loyal; as they had learned the advantages of land holdings, each desired to secure his own home; but remembering the past, they sought to provide that the limits of each to live from another's toil should be narrowed. Not by violating the rights of property "owners," but by securing the rights of property "creators," were new ideas popularised.

"But these inheriting world-owners," said the orator, "as a rule, have a pretty good time, though none of them have been permitted to remain long enough on their particular slice of Oliffa for it to get stale."

Reluctant to leave Britain, but anxious to pick up some of her wandering children, he closes our mother's case with this fond caress:--

"While these people of Britain are the salt of the earth, it is the offspring, and not the land-owner, who is to lead in the future social contests.

"Come to think of it, it is not 'Britain,' but the 'Briton,' that, like Atlas, carries the world on his shoulders; and 'tis the 'Briton' who is the 'salt of the earth,' while 'Britain' is the salt mine."

"DARKEST AFRICA" FINALLY DISCOVERED.

Oseba then turned his instruments on Africa. He told his audience that while along the fringe of this half-mythical land there were glimpses of a very ancient movement, the vast interior, until almost yesterday, was a veritable _terra incognito_, and to-day it is not easy to separate the grain of truth concerning its history from the cartload of fiction.

But Britain was now rolling up the sombre curtain, and opening the doors of her fabulous treasure-house that the "grateful" (?) nations might enter and take rooms.

Africa, the sage told his audience, covered one-fifth of the land surface of the outer globe, and had a population of 150,000,000 souls, or more than live in all the Americas and their islands. It has a doubtful history, thousands of years old. It was once so "civilised" that it housed three-hundred Christian Bishops, yet, to-day there is but a small portion--the Cape--that can claim more than a mere introduction to modern civilisation.

The orator informed the people, as he threw a series of pictures on the canvas, that many of the European nations were striving to extend their borders in Africa, and to the sorrow of the natives, they were now being pretty generally "discovered."

HUMAN RIGHTS.

Oh! sacred rights of man, ordained of God, yet only won by blood, and tears, and toil.

Here there was a digression, and an essay on "the rights of man," for the poetess Vauline inquired by what "right" the Europeans were "portioning out Africa," if that country had already 150,000,000 people?

"This," said the sage Oseba, as he moved his eyes from his admiring critic to his audience, "this is a pertinent question; but remember, my children, most of the inhabitants of Africa are black--they are very black."

"But is that an answer to my question?" said the poetess Vauline.

"Well," said Oseba, "it would be so deemed among the Outeroos, for questions of right and wrong do not apply to people who are unbleached."

This created great surprise, for the Shadowas had not gone entirely through the bleaching process.

"But why, among so-called civilised people, have the blacks no rights?" said the poetess Vauline.

"Plain enough," said Mr. Oseba, "for black people have no blunderbusses, and among the most civilised Outeroos 'rights' are measured by the carrying power of the guns and the skill of the men behind them. Among all the 'civilised nations' on Oliffa 'right' is measured, not by the pleadings of the master, not by the demands of humanity or justice, but in the first instance by color, for this indicates the capacity of the blunderbusses, and the nerve of the gunner.

"Yellow have rather more rights than black people, for they sometimes have a few guns and some saltpetre. 'Thou shalt not kill' and 'Thou shalt not steal' apply only to white men; and even then, only to small neighborhoods or in police affairs, for 'nations' are above these honeyed ravings, and expediency, not right, becomes the patriotic guide.

"But, my children, as John Bull is rapidly painting Africa red, we will preserve an open mind regarding that much-talked-of and little known country, though for the present it is no place for saints or Shadowas.

"I may say, in referring to colour in the discussion of questions of right, that 'red' is considerably respected. Then, too, of recent years, with improved tastes among the nations, 'red, white and blue,' thusly arranged is quite respected, while 'yellow' is very unfashionable, and 'green' is mostly admired when in uniform.

"That black Africa will, ere long, be about all red, about all British--at least in language, in sentiment, in human sympathy, in social, industrial and political methods and aspiration, if not in allegiance--can hardly be doubted; and as her ideals alone of all the races on the upper crust would satisfy us, our children may hope for further communication with these British-African colonies."

SPANISH AMERICA "DISCOVERED."

The orator here hesitated, then threw the map of what he termed "Spanish America" on the screen.

"This, my children," said he, "is Spanish America, with an area--including Central America and Mexico--of over 8,000,000 square miles, and a population of about 50,000,000 souls. This is a 'new' country, called 'new' by the Outeroos because it had been little improved since the old occupiers were blessed and sent to heaven."

The orator claimed that, in forest, in soil, in mineral wealth, and in all the resources of Nature necessary to the subsistence of a great population, South was probably superior to North America; yet, behold the mighty difference! The world had never presented so conspicuous an opportunity for weighing the merits of different races as colonisers and civilisers as are shown in the present conditions of South and North America, and all these marvellous disparities lie in the character of the invading or colonising races.

North America sprang from the loins of Britain; South, from the loins of Spain. That tells the story. But a comparison in all the late colonial enterprises of the world, shows Britain to hold an equally favorable position, for of all the "foreign" dependencies of all the other nations of the globe, there is not one that enjoys a sufficient degree of liberty and social progress to render it self-supporting--possibly, save Java, held by the Dutch.

The 50,000,000 Spanish-Americans, he observes, write less than one-half the number of letters written by 5,000,000 Canadians, and they have less commerce than 4,500,000 Australians, and less newspapers than 800,000 New Zealanders--and education and commerce means civilisation.

A TEMPEST.

Here the sage amusingly described a Spanish-American revolution.

He said:--

"When the young men of any city become weary with the more common excitements, the theatre and the bullfight, they organise a 'revolution.' For this 'outing' they call together their friends, arm themselves, establish a camp on the outlying hills, and make ready for 'slaughter.' The 'loyalists'--salaried clerks usually, with a few hangers-on--rush out to meet the belligerents, and approach to within a reasonably safe distance, when both sides 'fall in,' fire simultaneously--each over the others' heads--when all break and run for the treasury.

"If the 'loyalists' win the race they vote themselves extra pay, smoke a cigar, and enjoy a _siesta_; while if the others win, the treasury is looted, a new set of clerks installed, the taxes are raised to repair the damages, and the new 'push' enjoy the _siesta_.

"The security of the public from too frequent changes rests in the fact that usually the camp of the 'loyalists' is taken up between that of the insurgents and the treasury, so the 'loyalists' have a shorter run to make in the home stretch.

"Think, my children, what civilisation would have been to-day had the British been content to remain on their Island home, or had both the Americas been permanently held by the Spanish race--or, to judge by later history, by any other than the Anglo-Saxon.

"Well, my friends, I have no interest in booming any country, but if I had owned all Spanish-America in 'fee simple,' and had a long lease on Hades, I would rent my freehold out, and reside on my other holding."

(Leo remarks:--"Oh, for a laugh with Sir Marmaduke.")

"No," said the sage, "there is nothing worthy of imitation in Spanish-America, and there is no room under the present rule in these countries for the staid virtues of the Shadowas."

_SCENE VI._

AMERICA "DISCOVERED."

Oseba said he was now to return to rather favourite pastures. He was now to review the situation of a country unanimously admitted, by all its millions of proud and patriotic people, to be the "greatest country," not only on this earth, but in the Universe--and this, of course, meant America.

Leo Bergin, having been born in America, seemed to be "at home" to these graceful compliments.

Oseba said that before he reached America, that country had been somewhat "discovered" by a Mr. Morgan, who had much of it done up in a shawl strap, but that it was still considerably in business.

This American nation, he said, sprang from the loins of Britain, and its founders had inherited their fibre from that "classic land of liberty." Being strongly imbued with the British spirit, and being impressed by their novel surroundings, they broke the thread of tradition, and, having established a government based upon the consent of the governed, they demonstrated the possibility of a civilised state without a king or a bishop.

Here the orator grew eloquent, "as if to the manner born," and I quote:--

"America--North America--is the noblest country ever given by God to his children--a country saved through all the progressive ages of the world for a new experiment in human government, and here some British adventurers opened a branch office. That they might 'worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience,' they hurled themselves in their frail barques, turned their prows--the ships' prows--to three thousand miles of boisterous waves, and landed on Plymouth's rock-bound shores. Here, defying titanic difficulties, they scaled the mountains, levelled the forests, tamed the soil, and, from the jaws of many defeats, they snatched a glorious victory. Here, they erected new altars, blazed out a new destiny, and, rocked in the cradle of Liberty by the untrammelled winds of heaven, they built a temple at whose shrines the unborn generations could freely worship."

Here, the notes record that a young man in the audience smiled, while poetess Vauline seemed good-naturedly surprised; noticing which, Amoora Oseba faltered, and said:--

"Well, my children, those remarks would be very tame in America, and a man who could not soar higher on a 'fitting occasion' would certainly not be returned at the head of the poll."

But in material prosperity, the orator said that during the first century of America's national life, she achieved not only unparalleled, but unapproached success, and during the last half of that period she accumulated more wealth than was ever possessed by any other nation. With nearly half of the railways of the globe, she furnished half the food and raiment products, and manufactured more goods than any other four nations--aside from Britain--and by the brightest inventive genius the world ever knew, she had furnished more of the cunning devices that ease the care and toil of man, than all the world besides.

In moral progress, she has been equally successful, for she had about two-fifths of all the newspapers of the world; 72,000 post offices, 180,000 churches, 450,000 school teachers, and more libraries and more readers than any other country; while more than half of the institutions of higher learning on the globe were hers, and counting only the real Americans, more enterprising, ingenious, intelligent and educated people, than any other nation.

"Verily," said Oseba, "America was Britain's greatest contribution to the world's progress. These two kindred countries flourished through reciprocal interests; by their industrial methods they have lifted the world from medieval barbarism, and they are destined to give their language, their civilisation and their notions of liberty to the whole human race."

Here the poetess Vauline inquired why America, with all her great wealth and opportunities, would not be a desirable country to which to send a colony of the Shadowas?

"A cloud was on his brow."

Oseba answered, "I love that great and wonderful country so deeply, and I so much admire its splendid audacity, that I would gladly speak kindly, even of its faults; but, my children, it is not all 'rosewater and glycerine' in Yankeedom.

"In wealth, in enterprise, in education, in intelligence, and in opportunities for further progress, America may justly claim to be the foremost nation on the globe, and she has 'rights' no other would care to dispute. But,--

'The people, Oh! the people, Those much lower than the steeple.'

It is they, of whom we may profitably inquire. A nation may be rich, though the people may be poor; a nation may be strong, while the people are weak; a nation may be feared because the people can be relied upon to obey designing masters, but the true greatness of a nation must ever depend upon the quality of the individuals composing the nation.

"In America, my children, they sing many choruses. Listening across the sea, the groans of despair are heard, mingled with the inspiring chants of robed priests, and, the public heart being touched with pity, the bandmaster mounts his pedestal, looks serenely benevolent, and, raising his baton with gracefully curving signals, the populace join in one voice:--

'Come, ye, from lands oppressed, Come, ye, from east and west, Come, join our happy throng, Come, join in joyous song,-- For in this goodly land, nor want, nor poor, No kings oppress, no beggars seek the door. In Plenty's beauteous lap we wile the days away, Come, 'walk into our trap'--why need you long delay?'

"These dulcet tones were always supposed to help fill the immigrant ships, the vacancies caused by the strike, and the land-boomer's pockets, but just as the last faint echoes die away, there arises from the narrow lane 'hard by'--just off Broadway--the plaintive wail:--

'Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, E'er the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, And _that_ cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, The young birds are chirping in the nest, The young fawns are playing with the shadows, The young flowers are blowing toward the West,-- But the young, young children, O my brothers, They are weeping bitterly! They are weeping in the playtime of the others, In the country of the free.'

"Of course, my children, these borrowed lamentations may come from the fellows who were left out in the cold at the last elections, for one 'can't most always sometimes tell,' in America, whence come the inspiring motives of the entertainment.

"Let me tell you a little story, my children.

"One November afternoon, while on a west-bound train, I had as a travelling companion a very intelligent, patriotic, and sorrowful man. His manner was subdued, his voice was plaintive, and he spoke earnestly of the condition of his country.

"Skipping his most emphatic words, and toning down portions of his most lurid sentences, I will recite to you the substance of his fervid oration as we hurried over the plains to overtake the rapidly sinking sun.

"Speaking of the greatness of America, my friend said, 'Some qualifying words may be necessary, or the ideas sought to be conveyed may be confusing. We Americans,' said he, 'boast of "equality before the law," yet in no other civilised country has favoritism been carried to more deplorable extremes. We boast of freedom, yet in no country does a smaller number of men control the conditions under which all must live, and we boast of our constitutionally guarded rights, yet the accidental head of a party may exercise a power unthinkable by any constitutional monarch of Europe.'

"'But with so intelligent a people, may not these abuses be remedied?'

"'Intelligent?' said he, with a sigh. 'The people in America are frequently informed that they are very intelligent and free, but would a very intelligent people shovel coal so furiously into the furnace of a locomotive that was rapidly running their train to the devil?'

"'In theory, the Americans have erected the most symmetrical political temple, at whose altars the devout head of patriotism ever bowed a humble allegiance; but in practice,' said he with emotion, 'well, the upper rooms are occupied by schemers and the halls are crowded by a more rapacious set of money-changers than the Master whipped from the temple of Jerusalem.'

"'Dollars, dollars,' said he bitterly, 'there is nothing in America more potent than a million dollars.' Then after a moment's silence he muttered, 'yes, five millions are more potent.'

"'However, it would be mockingly absurd,' he sorrowfully continued, 'for any American to hoist a danger signal, for the pleasures of the occasion must not be marred; but,' said he, with a gleam of satisfaction, 'while Belshazzar is playing high jinks at the feast, Daniel is changing his slippers, making ready for a call. As a fact,' said my companion, 'America is being looted by her caretakers, and, while the Philistines are packing away the booty, the silly Samsons are sleeping in the lap of Delilah.'

"My friend was eloquent and impressive--his language was lurid and expressive, his manner was quite American, and I sympathised with him, for 'tis sad to behold the patriot, sitting with bowed head and solemn visage, contemplating the waning glory of his own proud country, and he seemed very earnest.

"Well," said Oseba, "we pulled up at a pretty city where there was confusion, and my friend disenrailed. As he stepped off, he met some friends. They, too, looked unhappy, and, feeling inquisitive, I alighted, and observing a pleasant looking fellow on the platform I approached him, and waving toward my late companion's party, I interrogatively said: 'Funeral?'

"The man actually laughed, and observing my seriousness, and that I was not of his country, he laughed again, and glancing at my friend's group, he said:--

"'Funeral, stranger! We've had an election, and it was the d----st landslide ever seen in these parts, and he--ha! ha!--is out in the cold.'"

Oseba, the notes say, remarked that the bell rang, he "waved" to his companion, re-entered his train, dropped into his seat and--thought.

A DIGRESSION.

The notes indicate that Mr. Oseba was deeply affected by the revelations of his "travelling companion." He need not despair.

This race has been rather prominently before the footlights for some time, and it is of such a mixed and sturdy stock that it seems endowed with the spirit, if not of "perpetual," at least, of long-continued youth.

The Anglo-Saxon has not yet filled his mission, and surely America should not, so early in its unparalleled career, betray evidence of decadence. While "grow quick, decay quick," seems to be a law of nations, as well as of Nature, while wealth is often an evidence of injustice, and while in numbers there are often germs of weakness, with America still in her vigorous youth, there must be virtue in her strength sufficient to meet these very apparent difficulties.

It must be remembered, too, that America, though she had great opportunities, had a stupendous task before her at her birth as a nation. In vindication of an inherited British instinct, the "British colonies" revolted against a king, too Dutch to appreciate a British sentiment, and a parliament, too weak to resist him, and the "British American" colonies became the "American nation."

But the responsibilities of the new nation were as tremendous as her opportunities were fabulous. Politically, she was adrift without pilot or compass, and she set about to erect a temple on whose altars her people might worship, and, without law or precedent, she built, better than she knew, a theory of government the astonishment, the pride, and the admiration of a hopeful world.

Well might the heads of the people have been a little turned, but lured by the most tempting opportunities ever offered to man, they hurled an awakened energy against the doors of the treasure house of Nature, and soon marched among the leaders of industrial art--yes, away in the vanguard. In defence of her commerce, her little navy was the first to humble the Barbary pirates that for centuries had levied blackmail upon the whole Mediterranean trade. Her flag was soon seen in every port, and from the profits of trade in her products, Britain laid the foundation of a stupendous industrial system, that made her the commercial mistress of the world.

Her pursuits were industrial, her ways were ways of peace. Soon she carried one-third of the ocean tonnage, and the struggles of the whole human race were being eased by her inventions.

During these formative stages of development, real poverty was unknown, and great fortunes--such as are being heaped up to-day--had never been dreamed of.

But what a period, and what a country for the development of character! In those peaceful but industrious and frugal days arose that splendid school of writers, poets, essayists, philosophers, publicists and reformers of New England, and the orators, statesmen, and patriots of the young days of the Republic. With such achievements, Mr. Oseba, liberty cannot perish from the earth. The grotesque anomalies in America are incidents of the changing times and will soon disappear.

But to the notes:--

"Room for a colony? Quantity, my children, but no tempting quality for us.

"No," said Oseba, "earnestly I love America and her splendid people, but the flag of social progress has been transferred to other lands, so America must hold the 'phone, while others of that splendid race--more strays from the Classic Isles--answer the calls of Justice and lead Humanity to a broader, higher and nobler liberty.

"Well, I will ring off America, for while every phase of the recital is so charming that one is inclined to loiter, we catch a glimpse of coming scenes that hurry our hopes for a pleasing goal.

"From great and grand America, I took a long ocean voyage, my children, and on the 'other side' I found the beginning of the end of my task, for here, all the dreams of all my weary wanderings, and all the hopes of all my fancied visions of better things, found realisation, and with a glad heart I turned my thoughts to the friends of Cavitorus."