Cosmos_--But how, then, do you reach
six parts of the globe?"

"Only count, professor: Asia, one; Africa, two; Australia, three;
Oceanica, four; North America, five; and South America, six."

"You cut America in two?"

"Nature has taken that responsibility. Each part of the world being
necessarily an insulated continent, an enormous island, it is too much
to ask me to confound the northern and southern continents of America,
hung together by a thread--a thread which messieurs the engineers"--he
bowed airily to my companion--"have very probably severed by this
time."

The honest professor passed his hand over his forehead. "The deuce!"
he said. "That is logic perhaps. Still, sir, I think it is rather
hardy in you to double America and annihilate Europe, when Europe
discovered America."

"The Europeans did not discover America," replied the young
philosopher. "The Americans discovered Europe."

The professor of geography remained stunned: the homoeopathist gave
utterance to a cry--one of admiration, doubtless.

"An American colony was settled in Norway long before the arrival of
Columbus in Santo Domingo: who will contradict me when Humboldt says
so? Only read your _Cosmos_!"

"The dickens! prodigious! prodigious!" repeated the man of blue. The
young silver coat went on:

[Illustration: THE BLESSING OF THE BAB.]

"I have been three times around the world, professor. The terrestrial
globe was my only chart. I have studied in their places its divisions,
continents, capes and oceans; also the customs, politics and
philosophies of its inhabitants. I have a weakness for learning; I
have caused myself to be initiated in all secret and philosophical
societies; I have taken a degree from the Brahmans of Benares; I
have received the accolade from the emir of the Druses; I have been
instructed by the priests of the Grand Lama, and have joined the
Society of Pure Illumination, the sole possessors of the Future Light.
I have just returned from Persia, where I received the blessing of the
great Bab; and, like Solomon, I can say, _Vanitas vanitatum_!"

The red nose was by this time quite inflated and inflamed with
disinterested pride. The blue was crushed, but he made a final effort,
as the silver-gray made his preparations to depart and adjusted his
breakfast-bill. "Pardon me, sir," he said, with a little infusion of
provincial pride. "I am not a cosmopolitan, a Constantinopolitan or a
Babist. But I enjoy your conversat