on?" And as it happened, while he waited for a reply, his eye
rested thoughtfully on me.

I grew red under his scrutiny. I tried my best to remember and failed. I
did vaguely recall the lithographed presentment of a large,
clean-shaven man, with a heavy jaw. It hung in a barber-shop window
between a blue-and-red poster announcing a grand masquerade and civic
ball, and a papier-mache trout under a glass case. I could not bring
back the man's name, although I was sure that his picture was inscribed
on the top "Our Choice," and at the bottom he was characterised as
somebody's friend--I could not recall whether he was the People's
friend, or the Workingman's, or the Bronx's. I could not even make out
his features, although, oddly enough, I could see the trout very
distinctly. The fish, I recollected, had a peculiarly ferocious scowl,
as if it resented the absurd blotches of green and gold with which the
artist had attempted to imitate Nature's colour scheme. Gradually I
found myself thinking of the trout as a member of Congress. Had I
continued much longer, I should have visualised that fish in the act of
addressing the Speaker of the House on the tariff bill.

Yet I could not help taking the professor's implied criticism to heart.
It would have been something even, to be able to tell whether I lived in
the Eleventh Congressional District or the Fifteenth; but I didn't know.
For how long a term was the man elected? I didn't know. Was it required
that he should be able to read and write? I didn't know.

That was the beginning. When luncheon was over, I sat before the fire
and tried to find out how much I did know of the things I should. I
found myself staring into bottomless depths of ignorance. I tried to
draw up a list of State Governors. I knew there must be between forty
and fifty, but I could remember only three Governors, including our own;
and later I recalled that one of the three was dead.

From death my mind leaped, oddly enough, to drownings. How should one
go about resuscitating a man who has been pulled out of the river? He
must be rolled on a barrel, of course; that much I remembered. But was
it face down or face upward? And should his arms be pumped vertically up
and down, or horizontally away from the body and back? Yes, and how if
some intelligent foreigner were to ask me what our five principal cities
were, in the order of population? It would be easy enough to begin, New
York, Chicago, Philadelphia--and