His waistcoat was white, very open, and fastened with three gold buttons. From one pocket to the other a massive chain was festooned, with a chronometer at one end of it and a pedometer at the other, to say nothing of the charms which jingled in the centre. His jewellery was completed by a series of rings which ornamented his fat, pink hands. His shirt was of immaculate whiteness, stiff with starch, dotted with three diamonds, surmounted by a wide, open collar, beneath the fold of which lay an almost imperceptible cravat of reddish brown cord. The trousers were striped and very full, and at the feet showed the laced boots with aluminium fastenings.

The Yankee’s physiognomy was in the highest degree expressive—the face of a man who suspected nobody, and could only see good in others. This was a man who could get out of difficulties, certainly, and he was also energetic, as was shown by the tonacity of his muscles, the apparent contraction of his superciliary and his masseter. He laughed noisily, but his laugh was nasal rather than oral, a sort of giggle, the hennitus of the physiologists.

Such was Calistus Munbar. He raised his big hat at the entrance of the Quartette Party. He shook hands with the four artistes. He led them to a table where the tea-urn was steaming and the traditional toast was smoking. He spoke all the time, giving them no opportunity to ask a single question—perhaps with the object of avoiding having to reply—boasting of the splendours of his town, the extraordinary creation of this city, keeping up the monologue without interruption, and when the breakfast was over, ending his monologue with these words, —

“Come, gentlemen, and follow me. But one piece of advice.”

“What?” asked Frascolin.

“It is expressly forbidden to spit in the streets. “

“We are not accustomed to,” protested Yvernès.

“Good! That will save you a fine.”

“Not spit—in America!” murmured Pinchinat, in a tone in which surprise was mingled with incredulity.

It would have been difficult to have obtained a guide and cicerone more complete than Calistus Munbar. This town he knew thoroughly. There was not a hotel of which he did not know the owner’s name, not a house that he did not know who lived there, not a man in the street by whom he was not saluted with sympathetic familiarity.

The city was built on a regular plan. The avenues and roads, provided with verandahs above the footways, crossed each other at right angles, forming a sort of chessboard. There was no want of variety about the houses; in their style and interior arrangements they were according to no other rule than the fancy of their architects. Except along a few commercial streets, these houses had a look of the palace about them, with their courtyards flanked by elegant wings, the architectural arrangement of their front, the luxury of the furniture of their rooms, the gardens, not to say parks, in their rear. It was remarkable that the trees, o£ recent planting, no doubt, were none of them fully grown. So it was with the squares at the intersection of the chief arteries of the city, carpeted with lawns of a freshness quite English, in which the clumps of trees of both temperate and torrid species had not drawn from the soil its full vegetative power. This peculiarity presented a striking contrast with the portion of Western America, where forest giants abound in the vicinity of the great Californian cities.

The quartette walked in front of him, observing this part of the town, each according to his manner—Yvernès attracted by what did not attract Frascolin; Zorn interested in what did not interest Pinchinat—all of them curious as to the mystery which enveloped this unknown city. From this diversity of views arose a fairly complete assemblage of remarks. But Calistus Munbar was there, and he had an answer for everything. An answer? He did not wait to be asked; he talked and talked, and never left off talking. His windmill of words turned and turned at the slightest wind.

Twenty minutes after leaving the Excelsior Hotel, Calistus Munbar said, —

“Here we are in Third Avenue, and there are thirty in the town. This is the most business one, it is our Broadway, our Regent Street, our Boulevard des Italiens. In this stores and bazaars you find the superfluous and the necessary, all that can be asked for by the requirements of modern comfort.”

“I see the shops,” observed Pinchinat, “but I don’t see the customers.”

“Perhaps it is too early in the morning?” added Yvernès.

“It is due,” said Calistus Munbar, “to most of the orders being given telephonically, or rather telautographically.”

“What does that mean?” asked Frascolin.

“It means that we commonly use the telautograph, an instrument which sends the written as the telephone sends the spoken word, without forgetting the kinetograph, which registers the movements; being for the eye what the phonograph is for the ear, and the telephote, which reproduces the images. The telautograph gives a better guarantee than the mere message, which the first to come is free to make bad use of. We sign our orders and deeds by electricity.”

“Even the marriage registers?” asked Pinchinat, ironically.

“Doubtless, Mr. Alto. Why should you not marry by the telegraphic wire?”

“And divorce?”

“And divorce; that is the very thing that keeps the wires busiest.”

And he laughed a long laugh that made all the jewellery on his waistcoat jingle.

“You are merry, Mr.