e comfort and convenience of the Fantaisian stranger, Popanilla's
conductor took his leave, previously informing him that his name was
Skindeep; that he was a member of one of the largest families in the
island; that, had he not been engaged to attend a lecture, he would have
stayed and dined with him; but that he would certainly call upon him on
the morrow.

Compared with his hotel the palace of his banker was a dungeon; even the
sunset voluptuousness of Fantaisie was now remembered without regret
in the blaze of artificial light and in the artificial gratification
of desires which art had alone created. After a magnificent repast, his
host politely inquired of Popanilla whether he would like to go to the
Opera, the comedy, or a concert; but the Fantaisian philosopher was not
yet quite corrupted; and, still inspired with a desire to acquire useful
knowledge, he begged his landlord to procure him immediately a pamphlet
on the Shell Question.

While his host was engaged in procuring this luxury a man entered the
room and told Popanilla that he had walked that day two thousand five
hundred paces, and that the tax due to the Excise upon this promenade
was fifty crowns. The Captain stared, and remarked to the excise-officer
that he thought a man's paces were a strange article to tax. The
excise-officer, with great civility, answered that no doubt at first
sight it might appear rather strange, but that it was the only article
left untaxed in Vraibleusia; that there was a slight deficiency in
the last quarter's revenue, and that therefore the Government had no
alternative; that it was a tax which did not press heavily upon the
individual, because the Vraibleusians were of a sedentary habit; that,
besides, it was an opinion every day more received among the best judges
that the more a man was taxed the richer he ultimately would prove; and
he concluded by saying that Popanilla need not make himself uneasy about
these demands, because, if he were ruined to-morrow, being a foreigner,
he was entitled by the law of the land to five thousand a-year; whereas
he, the excise-man, being a native-born Vraibleusian, had no claims
whatever upon the Government; therefore he hoped his honour would give
him something to drink.

His host now entered with the 'Novum Organon' of the great Periwinkle.
While Popanilla devoured the lively pages of this treatise, he
discovered that the system which had been so subtilely introduced by the
Governm