ella all the time.

As he began with the words, 'How do you like--?' Martin took him up and
said:

'The country, I presume?'

'Yes, sir,' said Elijah Pogram. A knot of passengers gathered round to
hear what followed; and Martin heard his friend say, as he whispered
to another friend, and rubbed his hands, 'Pogram will smash him into
sky-blue fits, I know!'

'Why,' said Martin, after a moment's hesitation, 'I have learned by
experience, that you take an unfair advantage of a stranger, when you
ask that question. You don't mean it to be answered, except in one way.
Now, I don't choose to answer it in that way, for I cannot honestly
answer it in that way. And therefore, I would rather not answer it at
all.'

But Mr Pogram was going to make a great speech in the next session
about foreign relations, and was going to write strong articles on the
subject; and as he greatly favoured the free and independent custom (a
very harmless and agreeable one) of procuring information of any sort
in any kind of confidence, and afterwards perverting it publicly in any
manner that happened to suit him, he had determined to get at Martin's
opinions somehow or other. For if he could have got nothing out of
him, he would have had to invent it for him, and that would have been
laborious. He made a mental note of his answer, and went in again.

'You are from Eden, sir? How did you like Eden?'

Martin said what he thought of that part of the country, in pretty
strong terms.

'It is strange,' said Pogram, looking round upon the group, 'this hatred
of our country, and her Institutions! This national antipathy is deeply
rooted in the British mind!'

'Good Heaven, sir,' cried Martin. 'Is the Eden Land Corporation, with Mr
Scadder at its head, and all the misery it has worked, at its door, an
Institution of America? A part of any form of government that ever was
known or heard of?'

'I con-sider the cause of this to be,' said Pogram, looking round again
and taking himself up where Martin had interrupted him, 'partly jealousy
and pre-judice, and partly the nat'ral unfitness of the British people
to appreciate the ex-alted Institutions of our native land. I expect,
sir,' turning to Martin again, 'that a gentleman named Chollop happened
in upon you during your lo-cation in the town of Eden?'

'Yes,' answered Martin; 'but my friend can answer this better than I
can, for I was very ill at the time. Mark! The gentleman is speaking of
Mr Chol