"Bob," said Mr. Lincoln, "can you elucidate the problem of the three
bodies?"

To Stephen's surprise, Mr. Hill elucidated.

The talk then fell upon novels and stories, a few of which Mr. Lincoln
seemed to have read. He spoke, among others, of the "Gold Bug." "The
story is grand," said he, "but it might as well have been written of
Robinson Crusoe's island. What a fellow wants in a book is to know where
he is. There are not many novels, or ancient works for that matter, that
put you down anywhere."

"There is that genuine fragment which Cicero has preserved from a last
work of Aristotle," said Mr. Hill, slyly. "'If there were beings who
lived in the depths & the earth, and could emerge through the open
fissures, and could suddenly behold the earth, the sea, and the:--vault
of heaven--'"

"But you--you impostor," cried Mr. Lincoln, interrupting, "you're giving
us Humboldt's Cosmos."

Mr. Hill owned up, laughing.

It is remarkable how soon we accustom ourselves to a strange situation.
And to Stephen it was no less strange to be walking over a muddy road of
the prairie with this most singular man and a newspaper correspondent,
than it might have been to the sub-terrestrial inhabitant to emerge on
the earth's surface. Stephen's mind was in the process of a chemical
change: Suddenly it seemed to him as if he had known this tall Illinoisan
always. The whim of the senatorial candidate in choosing him for a