“Do the cardinal points of this city vary as somebody pleases?”

“Yes and no,” said Calistus Munbar, “I will explain that later on. Let us return to this section, west if you please, which is only inhabited by Protestants; it is here that the practical people live, while the Catholics, who are more intellectual and refined, occupy the east section. That tells you that this temple is the Protestant temple.”

“It looks like it,” observed Yvernès. “With its heavy architecture, prayer would not be an elevating towards the sky, but a crushing towards the ground.”

“Well expressed!” said Pinchinat. “Mr. Munbar, in a town so up-to-date in its inventions I suppose you listen to the sermon or the mass by telephone?”

“Quite so.”

“And confession?”

“Just as you can get married by telautograph; you must admit that it is practicable enough—”

“Not to be believed,” replied Pinchinat, “not to be believed.”

CHAPTER IV.

At eleven o’clock, after so long a walk, it was permissible to be hungry. And our artistes took advantage of this permission; and they agreed that at any price they must have some luncheon. This was also the opinion of Calistus Munbar.

Should they return to the Excelsior Hotel? Yes, for there did not seem to be many restaurants in this town, where the people probably preferred to have their meals at home, and tourists were apparently rather rare.

In a few minutes a tramcar took the hungry men to their hotel, where they took their places before a well-served table. It afforded a striking contrast with the ordinary American style, in which the multiplicity of the dishes is not at all in proportion to the quantity they contain. Excellent was the beef and mutton; tender and tasty was the poultry; of tempting freshness was the fish. And instead of the iced water of the restaurants of the Union, there were several kinds of beer and wines which the sun of France had distilled ten years before on the hill sides of Medoc and Burgundy.

Pinchinat and Frascolin did honour to this repast, as did also Zorn and Yvernès. Calistus Munbar had invited them, and it would have been bad taste not to have accepted his hospitality.

Besides, this Yankee, whose conversational powers were inexhaustible, displayed quite a charming humour. He told them all about the town except the one thing his guests wished to know, namely, what was this independent city, the name of which he hesitated to reveal?”A little patience,” he would say; “wait till the exploration is finished.” Was his idea to make the quartette tipsy, with the object of letting them miss the train to San Diego? No, but they drank well after having eaten well, and the dessert was being finished with tea, coffee and liqueurs, when an explosion shook the glasses in the hotel.

“What is that?” asked Yvernès, with a start.

“Do not be uneasy, gentlemen,” replied Calistus Munbar, “that is the gun at the observatory.”

“If it only means noon,” said Frascolin, looking at his watch, “I beg to state that it is late.”

“No, Mr. Alto, no! The sun is no later here than elsewhere.”

A singular smile played on the American’s lips, his eyes sparkled behind his spectacles, and he rubbed his hands. He seemed to be congratulating himself on having perpetrated some excellent joke.

Frascolin, less excited than the others by the good cheer, looked at him suspiciously without knowing what to make of it.

“Come, my friends,” added the American, in his most amiable manner, “allow me to remind you that there is the second part of the town for us to visit, and I shall die of despair if a single detail escapes you. We have no time to lose.”

“At what time does the train start for San Diego?” asked Zorn, always anxious not to fail in his engagements by arriving late.

“Yes, at what time?” repeated Frascolin.

“Oh, in the evening,” replied Calistus Munbar, with a wink of his left eye. “Come, my guests, come. You will not repent of having had me as a guide.”

How could they disobey such an obliging personage? The four artistes left the Excelsior Hotel and strolled along the road. It really seemed as though they had drunk rather freely of the wine, for a kind of thrill seemed to run through their legs, although they had not taken their places on one of the moving footways.

“Eh! eh! Support us, Chatillon!” exclaimed “his highness.”

“I think we have had a little to drink,” said Yvernès, wiping his forehead.

“All right,” observed the American, “once is not always! We had to water your welcome.”

“And we have emptied the watering-pot,” replied Pinchinat, who had never felt in a better humour.

Calistus Munbar took them down one of the roads leading to the second half of the town. In this district there was more animation than in the other. It was as though they had been suddenly transported from the northern to the southern States of the Union; from Chicago to New Orleans, from Illinois to Louisiana. The shops were better filled, the houses of more elegant architecture, the family mansions more comfortable, the hotels as magnificent as those in the Protestant section but of more cheerful aspect. The people were different in bearing and character. The city was apparently double, like certain stars, only the sections did not revolve round one another.

When they had nearly reached the centre of the district, the group stopped about the middle of Fifteenth Avenue, and Yvernès exclaimed, —

“Upon my word, that is a palace!”

“The palace of the Coverley family,” replied Calistus Munbar, “Nat Coverley, the equal of Jem Tankerdon.”

“Richer than he is?” asked Pinchinat.

“Quite as rich,” said the American. “An ex-banker of New Orleans, who has more hundreds of millions than he has fingers on both hands.”

“A nice pair of gloves, Mr. Munbar!”

“Just so.”

“And these two notables, Jem Tankerdon and Nat Coverley, are enemies, naturally?”

“Rivals, at least! each striving for preponderance in the city’s affairs, jealous of one another.”

“Will they end by eating one another?” asked Zorn.

“Perhaps, and if one devours the other—” “What an attack of indigestion will follow!” And Calistus Munbar absolutely shook with laughter, so much was he amused at the reply.

The Catholic church rises in a vast open space so as to give a good view of its fine proportions. It is in the Gothic style, the style that can be admired close to, for the vertical lines which constitute its beauty lose their character when seen from a distance. St. Mary’s Church merits admiration for the slenderness of its pinnacles, the delicacy of its rose work, the elegance of its flamboyant pointed arches, the gracefulness of its windows.

“A fine specimen of Anglo-Saxon Gothic,” said Yvernès, who was a good judge of architecture. “You are right, Mr. Munbar, the two sections of your town have no more resemblance between them than the temple of the one and the cathedral of the other!”

“And yet, Monsieur Yvernès, these two sections are born of the same mother—”

“But not of the same father, probably?” said Pinchinat. “Yes, of the same father, my excellent friends. Only they have been built in a different way. They were designed for the convenience of those in search of an existence, tranquil, happy, free from all care, an existence offered by no other city of the old or new world.”

“By Apollo, Mr.