day," said I.

"Yesterday? but why?"

"Because yesterday--was it not?--was the first of the two days agreed
upon between you and our father?"

"No--surely to-day is the first day--I was to come XXI. i. 3, which would
be your December 9."

"But yesterday was December 9 with us--to-day is December 10."

"Strange! What day of the week do you make it?"

"To-day is Thursday, December 10."

"This is still stranger--we make it Wednesday; yesterday was Tuesday."

Then I saw it. The year XX. had been a leap year with the Erewhonians,
and 1891 in England had not. This, then, was what had crossed my
father's brain in his dying hours, and what he had vainly tried to tell
me. It was also what my unconscious self had been struggling to tell my
conscious one, during the past night, but which my conscious self had
been too stupid to understand. And yet my conscious self had caught it
in an imperfect sort of a way after all, for from the moment that my
dream had left me I had been composed, and easy in my mind that all would
be well. I wish some one would write a book about dreams and
parthenogenesis--for that the two are part and parcel of the same story--a
brood of folly without father bred--I cannot doubt.

I did not trouble George with any of this rubbish, but only shewed him
how the mistake had arisen. When we had laughed sufficiently over my
mistake--for it was I who had come up on the wrong day, not he--I fished
my knapsack out of its hiding-place.

"Do not unpack it," said I, "beyond taking out the brooches, or you will
not be able to pack it so well; but you can see the ends of the bars of
gold, and you can feel the weight; my father sent them for you. The
pearl brooch is for your mother, the smaller brooches are for your
sisters, and your wife."

I then told him how much gold there was, and from my pockets brought out
the watches and the English knife.

"This last," I said, "is the only thing that I am giving you; the rest is
all from our father. I have many many times as much gold myself, and
this is legally your property as much as mine is mine."

George was aghast, but he was powerless alike to express his feelings, or
to refuse the gold.

"Do you mean to say that my father left me this by his will?"

"Certainly he did," said I, inventing a pious fraud.

"It is all against my oath," said he, looking grave.

"Your oath be hanged," said I. "You must give the gold to the Mayor, who
knows that it