spensable changes in their attire. It need
scarcely be hinted that there are many accomplished
aviators in San Francisco who would take a jovial pleasure
in lending themselves to this amusing hoax, if only for the
chance of seeing their most reverend seniors in pyjamas.

A glance at the itinerary of the alleged world tourists,
coupled with a comparison of dates, will show how
impossible it is for them to have covered the stages of
their tour in the time claimed. Indeed, it is almost an
insult to our readers' intelligence even to suggest this
comparison. The record put up by Blakeney in his New
York-Chicago flight was 102 miles per hour for six
consecutive hours. If the flying men who are now asserted
to have touched at San Francisco are the same as were
reported by the Constantinople correspondent of the London
_Times_ on Friday last, a simple calculation will show that
they must have flown for many days at a time at twice
Blakeney's speed, with the briefest intervals for food and
rest. It is not yet claimed that the alleged Smith and his
anonymous companion have discovered a means of dispensing
with sleep, or that they are content, like the fabulous
chameleon, to live on air. Our children may live to witness
such developments in the science of aviation as may render
possible an aerial journey of this length and celerity; but
so sudden an augmentation of the speed and endurance of the
aeroplane, to say nothing of the more delicate mechanism of
the human frame, demands a more authentic confirmation of
the midnight impressions of the San Francisco journalists
than has yet come to hand. In short, we do not believe a
word of it, and our speculation at the moment is, what
brand of soap or tinned meat, what new machine oil, or
panacea for human ills, these ingeniously arranged
manifestations are intended to boom.

"What do you think of that, Davis?" asked Mr. McMurtrie at the end of
six minutes' rapid dictation. It was his pardonable weakness to claim
the admiration of his subordinates.

"Bully, sir," replied the shorthand-writer timidly. As a matter of
fact, he thought nothing at all, his whole attention having been so
completely absorbed by his task of making dots and curves and dashes
as to leave no portion of his brain availab