found no fault with him for having an adventurous spirit which had carried him to the Country of the Mad beyond the sea, for he had shown his ultimate wisdom by coming back to live in a civilized part of the world. In fact, by the way they drifted in during the afternoon and sat at adjacent tables while he held forth bilingually upon his experiences in a Hoboken sewer, it was evident that in addition to being a stout burgess of the township, he was a species of Sinbad to them, with preposterous but intriguing stories of subterranean cities where vast and brilliant chariots roared through interminable passages; of heaven-scaling towers where myriads fought for silks and jewels, for gold and silver, for purple and fine linen; of streets above which insane railway trains hurtled and shrieked and groaned as they carried the demented inhabitants on endless journeys to nowhere in particular for no ascertainable reasons. For mind you, they displayed no desire whatever to emulate the daring feats of those who had gone to America. They sat there for a time, smoking _narghilehs_ or cigarettes, looking thoughtfully at the floor between their outlandish shoes, and then drifted away to attend, it is to be presumed, to various affairs. I doubt whether my confirmation of these improbabilities was of much avail in convincing them that he was not simply exercising the ancient rights of the teller of tales, and striving to terrify them with stories of genii in bottles and carpets that flew through the air. And he certainly had no intention of going back. He had 'enough mon' now,' he remarked, 'and who but a lunatic would ever venture into such a pandemonium save for the purpose of getting 'mon'.' The bare idea of living permanently in that country and exposing one's soul to the destructive action of their peculiar political ideas had never entered his head. They had called him 'a crazy mutt' because, forsooth, he had quit when his belt was sufficiently loaded with 'mon'. Now why should they do that? Why should he go on living in hell when he had the price of paradise strapped about his middle? It was a baffling problem. Yet they did it. Even now, as he spoke, out there across the world, millions of people on an island the size of Ipsilon or even smaller than Naxos, were rushing to and fro like maniacs. For of course he was under the impression that Manhattan, with the adjacent coast beyond the river, was all there was of America. For all he knew the subway ran to San Francisco and New Orleans was a mile or two below Staten Island. Listening to him, it was perfectly easy to visualize the growth of ancient tales of foreign parts. When I think of him nowadays, and observe the noise and chaffering of political people who are vociferously claiming for such as he what they call self-determination or what in those illiterate days was known as autonomy, I am constrained to a great amazement. We shall see some strange signs and portents later, if I am not in error.