And that exquisitely neat fellow, looking like a lad unconvincingly made-up for an octogenarian in amateur theatricals, was the premier of the largest province in the world: his thin-featured neighbor was an aeronaut—at this period really a _rara avis_—and went above the clouds to get his livelihood, just as ordinary people went to banks and offices. And chief of all, their multifarious host—the personage, as one may discreetly call him—had left unattempted scarcely any rôle in the field of human activities: as ranchman, statesman, warrior, historian, editor, explorer, athlete, coiner of phrases, and re-discoverer of the Decalogue, impartially, he had labored to make the world a livelier place of residence; and already he was the pivot of as many legends as Charlemagne or Arthur. The famous navy-officer, as has been said, was complaining of the weather. “The seasons have changed so, since I can remember. We seem to go straight from winter into summer nowadays.” “It has been rather unseasonable,” assented the financier; “but then you always feel the heat so much more during the first few hot days.” “Besides,” came the judicious comment, “it has not been the heat which was so oppressive this morning, I think, as the great amount of humidity in the air.” “Yes, it is most unpleasant—makes your clothes stick to you so.” “Ah, but don’t you find, now,” asked the premier gaily, “that looking at the thermometer tends to make you feel, really, much more uncomfortable than if you stayed uninformed as to precisely how hot it was?” “Well! where ignorance is bliss it is folly to be wise, as I remember to have seen stated somewhere.” “By George, though, it is wonderful how true are many of those old sayings!” observed the personage. “We assume we are much wiser than our fathers: but I doubt if we really are, in the big things that count.” “In fact, I have often wondered what George Washington, for example, would think of the republic he helped to found, if he could see it nowadays.” “He would probably find it very different from what he imagined it would be.” “Why, he would probably turn in his grave, at some of our newfangled notions—such as prohibition and equal suffrage.” “Oh, well, all sensible people know, of course, that the trouble with prohibition is that it does not prohibit, and that woman’s place is the home, not in the mire of politics.” “That is admirably put, sir, if you will permit me to say so. Still, there is a great deal to be said on both sides.” “And after all, is there not a greater menace to the ideals of Washington and Jefferson in the way our present laws tend uniformly to favor rich people?” “There you have it, sir—to-day we punish the poor man for doing what the rich man does with entire impunity, only on a larger scale.”