“Thank goodness,” said one of the speakers (of course in the Erewhonian language), “we seem to be finding somebody at last. I hope it is not some poacher; we had better be careful.” “Nonsense!” said the other. “It must be one of the rangers. No one would dare to light a fire while poaching on the King’s preserves. What o’clock do you make it?” “Half after nine.” And the watch was still in the speaker’s hand as he emerged from darkness into the glowing light of the fire. My father glanced at it, and saw that it was exactly like the one he had worn on entering Erewhon nearly twenty years previously. The watch, however, was a very small matter; the dress of these two men (for there were only two) was far more disconcerting. They were not in the Erewhonian costume. The one was dressed like an Englishman or would- be Englishman, while the other was wearing the same kind of clothes but turned the wrong way round, so that when his face was towards my father his body seemed to have its back towards him, and _vice verso_. The man’s head, in fact, appeared to have been screwed right round; and yet it was plain that if he were stripped he would be found built like other people. What could it all mean? The men were about fifty years old. They were well-to-do people, well clad, well fed, and were felt instinctively by my father to belong to the academic classes. That one of them should be dressed like a sensible Englishman dismayed my father as much as that the other should have a watch, and look as if he had just broken out of Bedlam, or as King Dagobert must have looked if he had worn all his clothes as he is said to have worn his breeches. Both wore their clothes so easily--for he who wore them reversed had evidently been measured with a view to this absurd fashion--that it was plain their dress was habitual. My father was alarmed as well as astounded, for he saw that what little plan of a campaign he had formed must be reconstructed, and he had no idea in what direction his next move should be taken; but he was a ready man, and knew that when people have taken any idea into their heads, a little confirmation will fix it. A first idea is like a strong seedling; it will grow if it can. In less time than it will have taken the reader to get through the last foregoing paragraphs, my father took up the cue furnished him by the second speaker. “Yes,” said he, going boldly up to this gentleman, “I am one of the rangers, and it is my duty to ask you what you are doing here upon the King’s preserves.” “Quite so, my man,” was the rejoinder. “We have been to see the statues at the head of the pass, and have a permit from the Mayor of Sunch’ston to enter upon the preserves. We lost ourselves in the thick fog, both going and coming back.” My father inwardly blessed the fog. He did not catch the name of the town, but presently found that it was commonly pronounced as I have written it.