packed up that odious but very lovely
locket, without further attempt to unriddle it, and persuaded my very
good and clever Mrs. Busk to let me start right early. By so doing I
could have three hours with a good gentleman always in a hurry, and yet
return for the night to Shoxford, if he should advise me so.

Men and women seem alike to love to have their counsels taken; and the
equinox being now gone by, Mrs. Busk was ready to begin before the tardy
sun was up, who begins to give you short measure at once when he finds
the weights go against him. Mrs. Busk considered not the sun, neither
any of his doings. The time of day was more momentous than any of the
sun's proceedings. Railway time was what she had to keep (unless a good
customer dropped in), and as for the sun--"clock slow, clock fast," in
the almanacs, showed how he managed things; and if that was not enough,
who could trust him to keep time after what he had done upon the dial of
Ahaz? Reasoning thus--if reason it was--she packed me off in a fly for
the nearest railway station, and by midday I found the Major laboring on
his ramparts.

After proper salutations, I could not help expressing wonder at the
rapid rise of things. Houses here and houses there, springing up like
children's teeth, three or four in a row together, and then a long
gap, and then some more. And down the slope a grand hotel, open for
refreshment, though as yet it had no roof on; for the Major, in virtue
of his charter, defied all the magistrates to stop him from selling
whatever was salable on or off the premises. But noblest and grandest
of all to look at was the "Bruntsea Athenaeum, Lyceum, Assembly-Rooms,
Institution for Mutual Instruction, Christian Young Men's Congress, and
Sanitary, Saline, Hydropathic Hall, at nominal prices to be had gratis."

"How you do surprise me!" I said to Major Hockin, after reading all
that, which he kindly requested me to do with care; "but where are the
people to come from?"

"Erema," he replied, as if that question had been asked too often, "you
have not had time to study the laws of political economy--the noblest
of noble sciences. The first of incontrovertible facts is that supply
creates demand. Now ask yourself whether there could even be a Yankee if
ideas like yours had occurred to Columbus?"

This was beyond me; for I never could argue, and strove to the utmost
not to do so. "You understand those things, and I do not," said I, with
a smile, whi