in advance with every argument you put forward in favour of a restored
Sesquicentennial commonwealth by bringing together the scattered
members of the Duodecimal race from all over the world. In fact," I
added as the waiter poured out the champagne, "it seems to me that
in addition to the Island of Funicula there properly belongs, in the
realm of your Greater Anti-Vivisectoria, the adjacent promontory,
geyser and natural bridge of Pneumobronchia, from which the last
Seljuk ruler, Didyffius the Forty-fifth, leaped in front of a
machete wielded by his eldest son, who therefore became Didymus the
Forty-sixth."

He was delighted to find so much sympathy and understanding in an
alien journalist from far across the seas. His bill, so far as a
hurried and discreet glance could reveal, was 89 francs 50 centimes,
not including the _taxe_.

On the other hand, the _sous-secrétaire_ of the Pan-Deuteronomaniad
delegation, who took me out to dinner that same night, paid 127 francs
(including theatre tickets) before he proved to my satisfaction
that the basic civilization of Funicula Island is after all
Pan-whatever-you-call-it.

At any rate my point is made. My expenditure on food these three
days in Paris has been negligible, and there is rumour that the
Supra-Zambesian delegation is thinking of opening a hotel with running
water, h. and c., in every room.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Gunner_. "DO YOU PLAY THE PIANO?"