devout pilgrim seeking enlightenment. Judge, then, with what pleasure
I saw your chief temple of the customs. What convenience and economy
of arrangement! How singularly fitted for its purpose! You are indeed
a great people. I passed into the main circular hall, and what purity
of atmosphere, what admirable ventilation, what refreshing coolness
and sweetness; it is, indeed, a sanitarium; nor can I wonder that you
are proud of your progress and achievements in this science. But when
I learned that the officers engaged in the public service in this
temple, in the business of various accounts, and in determining the
value of the products of the whole world, were appointed to the duty
because of their zeal in providing candidates for offices and
procuring votes for them, I was lost in admiration of institutions
under which zealous shouting and running are evidence of skill to
embroider muslin and to calculate interest. Truly you are a great
people, and your institutions overflow with wisdom."

The Easy Chair bowed and smiled, but the precise terms of an
appropriate reply did not suggest themselves, until, remembering what
was due to its native land, it began: "There can, however, illustrious
son of Lien Chi Altangi, be no doubt that we are a very great and
superior people, and that we have a very just pity and contempt for
all the unhappy victims of the effete despotisms and hoary empires of
the older world--not that we believe the other continents to be
actually older, for our own favored continent doubtless emerged first
from chaos, but it is an expression which, with the generosity of our
institutions, we are willing to tolerate."

"I cannot deny your greatness," politely said the yellowish-visaged
gentleman, "and far be it from me to question your superiority. It was
but yesterday evening that I attended a social assembly which was