The boys were rather surprised when they sat down to a dinner at which stewed oysters, green corn, and other things with which they were familiar at home were smoking before them; and Fred remarked that the Japanese cooking was not so unlike that of America, after all. Doctor Bronson smiled and said the cooking was done in America, and all that the Japanese cook had to do with the articles was to warm them up after opening the cans. "And so these things come here in cans, do they?" Frank inquired. "Certainly," the Doctor responded, "these things come here in cans, and a great many other things as well. They serve to make life endurable to an American in a distant land like Japan, and they also serve to keep him patriotic by constantly reminding him of home. "No one," he continued, "who has not been in foreign lands, or has no direct connection with the business of canning our fruits, meats, and vegetables, can have an idea of the extent of our trade in these things. The invention of the process of preserving in a fresh state these products which are ordinarily considered perishable has enabled us to sell of our abundance, and supply the whole world with what the whole world could not otherwise obtain. You may sit down to a dinner in Tokio or Cairo, Calcutta or Melbourne, Singapore or Rome, and the entire meal may consist of canned fish, canned meats, canned fruits, or canned vegetables from the United States. A year or two ago the American consul at Bangkok, Siam, gave a Christmas dinner at which everything on the table was of home production, and a very substantial dinner it was." "I wonder what they had for dinner that day," said Fred, with a laugh. "As near as I can remember," the Doctor replied, "they began with oyster and clam soup. Then they had boiled codfish and fresh salmon, and, as if there were not fish enough, they had stewed eels. For meats they had turkey, chicken, ham, a goose that had been put up whole, stewed beef, roast beef, tongue, sausages, prairie chickens, ducks, and a few other things; and as for vegetables and fruits, you can hardly name any product of our gardens and orchards that they did not have before them. For drinks they had American wines, American beer, American cider, and, besides, they had honey just out of the comb that astonished everybody with its freshness. All who were present pronounced the dinner as good as any they had ever eaten, and it made them feel very patriotic to think that everything came from home. "You can hardly go anywhere in the world where there is an approach to civilization without finding our canned goods, as the merchants call them. They are widely known and appreciated, and well deserve the reputation they bear."