Sissie's eyes were roving intently about Miriam's face. They _stop_ the breath at the lips and in the nose. Bong. That's through the nose. _Bon!_ D'you hear; like a little explosion. Hold the lips tight before the b and explode the word up into the nose partly closing the back of the throat and mouth. It's all like that and the pronunciation does not vary. When you know the few rules and get the vowels pure and explode the consonants, that's all there is. Sissie waited, controlling an apologetic smile. She had realised nothing but the violent outburst and was secretly laughing over the idea of explosions.... Say matin, suggested Miriam patiently. Mattong, murmured Sissie. Say mattah, persisted Miriam. The youth came flourishing in with the coal box. That's right. Now try forcing the ah up into your nose and shutting your nose on it. It's time to lay the table Emyou, stated Sissie reprovingly towards the hearthrug. Pliz?--The young man reared a mild fair crested head above the rim of the table. Lay the table, tarb, paw dinnay snapped Sissie. I shall have to go Miss Henderson she added, getting gently up and ambling to the door. The young man shot murmuring from the room. They appeared to collide in the hall. Miriam found herself in the midst of a train of thought that had distracted her during her morning's work. _Cosmopolis_, she scribbled in her note-book. The world of science and art is the true cosmopolis. Those were not the words in "Cosmopolis" but it was the idea. Perhaps no one had thought of it before the man who thought of having the magazine in three languages. It would be one of the new ideas. Tearing off the page she laid it on the sofa-head and sat contemplating an imagined map of Europe with London Paris and Berlin joined by a triangle, the globe rounding vaguely off on either side. All over the globe, dotted here and there were people who read and thought, making a network of unanimous culture. It was a tiring reflection; but it brought a comfortable assurance that somewhere beyond the hurrying confusion of everyday life something was being done quietly in a removed real world that led the other world. People arrived independently at the same conclusions in different languages and in the world of science they communicated with each other. That made Cosmopolis. Yet it was an awful thought that the world might gradually become all one piece; perhaps with one language; perhaps English if those people were right who talked about Anglo-Saxon supremacy. "England and America together could rule the world." It sounded secure and comforting, like a police-station; it would be wonderful to belong to the race whose language was spoken all over the world. All the foreigners would simply have to become English. But that brought a dreadful sense of loss. Foreign languages had a beauty that could not be found in English, and the world would be _ruled_ by the kind of English people who could never get the sound of a foreign word