Munbar,” said Pinchinat, joining in the American’s hilarity.

“Yes, as a flock of finches on a sunshiny day.”

At this point a transverse artery was reached. This was Nineteenth Avenue, from which all trade was banished. Tram lines ran down it as down the others, swift cars passed along without raising a grain of dust, for the roadway, laid with an imputrescible pavement of Australian karry or jarrah, was as clean as if it had been polished. Frascolin, always observant of physical phenomena, noticed that the footway sounded under his feet like a plate of metal.

“These are splendid workers in iron,” he said, “they make their footways of sheet iron.”

And he stepped up to Calistus Munbar to hear what he had to say.

“Gentlemen,” said Munbar, “look at that mansion.”

And he pointed to a vast construction of monumental aspect, the courtyard of which had along its front a railing of aluminium.

“This mansion—I might say this palace—is inhabited by the family of one of the principal notables of the town, that is Jem Tankerdon, the owner of inexhaustible mines of petroleum in Illinois, the richest, perhaps, and consequently the most honourable and most honoured of our citizens.”

“Millions?” asked Zorn.

“Phew!” said Calistus Munbar. “The million is for us but the current dollar, and here we count them by hundreds! Only the richest men are in this city. That explains why the shopkeepers make fortunes in a few years. I mean retail shopkeepers, for wholesale traders there are none in this unique microcosm of the world.”

“And manufacturers?” asked Pinchinat.

“There are no manufacturers.”

“And shipowners?” asked Frascolin.

“There are none.”

“People living on their investments?” asked Zorn.

“Only those and merchants on the way to be like them.”

“What about the workmen?” observed Yvernès.

“When we want workmen we get them from somewhere else, and when their work is over we return them—with a good sum in wages.”

“Look here, Mr. Munbar,” said Frascolin, “you have a few poor in the town, just to keep the race from becoming extinct?”

“Poor! Mr. Second Violin! We have not got a single poor man in the town.”

“Then mendicity is forbidden?”

“There is no necessity to forbid it, as the town is not accessible to beggars. That is all very well for the cities of the Union, with their depots, their asylums, their workhouses, and the houses of correction.”

“Do you mean to say you have no prisons?”

“No more than we have prisoners.”

“But criminals?”

“They remain in the old and new Continent, where they can exercise their vocation under more advantageous conditions.”

“Really, Mr. Munbar,” said Sebastien Zorn; “one would think to listen to you that we were no longer in America.”

“You were yesterday,” replied this astonishing cicerone.

“Yesterday!”  exclaimed Frascolin? wondering what could be the meaning of this strange expression.

“Doubtless. To-day you are in an independent city, over which the Union has no claim, which belongs only to itself.”

“And its name?” asked Sebastien Zorn, whose natural irritability began to peep out.

“Its name?” replied Calistus Munbar. “Allow me to be silent a little longer.”

“And when shall we know?”

“When you have finished the visit by which it is so much honoured.”

This reserve was at least peculiar. But it was of no consequence. Before noon the Quartette would have finished their curious walk, and to learn the city’s name as they were leaving it would be quite enough. The only puzzle about it was this: How could so considerable a city occupy one of the points on the Californian coast without belonging to the United States, and how was it that the driver of the carriage had never mentioned it? The main thing after all was that in twenty-four hours the Quartette would be at San Diego, where they would learn the word of this enigma if Calistus Munbar decided not to reveal it to them.

This strange personage had again given himself over to the indulgence of his descriptive faculty, not without letting it be seen that he did not wish to explain himself more categorically.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “we are at the beginning of Thirty-Seventh Avenue. Behold the admirable perspective. In this quarter there are no shops, no bazaars, none of that movement in the streets which denotes a business existence. Nothing but hotels and private houses, but the fortunes are inferior to those of Nineteenth Avenue. Incomes of from ten to twelve millions.”

“Mere beggars!”  observed Pinchinat, with a significant grimace.

“Eh, Mr. Alto!”  replied Calistus Munbar, “it is always possible to be a beggar in comparison with someone else! A millionaire is rich in comparison with a man who possesses only a hundred thousand, but not in comparison with him who has a hundred millions.”

Many times already our artistes had noticed that of all the words used by their cicerone it was “million” which recurred most frequently. And a fascinating word it was, pronounced as he pronounced it with metallic sonorousness.

The quartette continued their walk through the extraordinary town, the name of which was unknown to them. The people in the streets were all comfortably dressed; nowhere could the rags of a beggar be seen. Everywhere were trams, drays, trucks, moved by electricity. A few of the larger streets were provided with moving pavements, worked by an endless chain, and on which people walked as if on a travelling train sharing in its own motion. Electric carriages rolled along the roads with the smoothness of a ball on a billiard-table. Equipages in the true sense of the word, that is to say, vehicles drawn by horses, were only met with in the wealthy quarters.

“Ah! there is a church,” said Frascolin, and he pointed to an edifice of heavy design, without architectural style, rising from the green lawns of a square.

“That is the Protestant temple,” said Calistus Munbar, stopping in front of the building.

“Are there any Catholic churches in your town?” asked Yvernès.

“Yes, sir, and I would like you to observe that although there are about a thousand different religions on our globe, we here confine ourselves to Catholicism and Protestantism. It is not here as in the United States disunited by religion, if not by politics, in which there are as many sects as families—Methodists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Wesleyans, &c. Here there are only Protestants faithful to the Calvinistic doctrine or Roman Catholics.”

“And what language do they speak?”

“English and French are both used.”

“We congratulate you,” said Pinchinat.

“The town,” continued Calistus Munbar, “is divided into two sections, which are almost equal. Here we are in the section—”

“West, I think?” said Frascolin, looking up at the sun. “West, if you like.”

“What, if I like?replied the Second Violin, much surprised at the reply.