rate.

"Ah!" he said. "We have got some roots to-day. Who knows whether we
shall have any to-morrow?"

"Without any doubt," replied Godfrey, "to-morrow and the day after, and
always. There is only the trouble of going and fetching them."

"Well, Godfrey, and the camas?"

"Of the camas we will make flour and bread when we have got a fire."

"Fire!" exclaimed the professor, shaking his head. "Fire! And how shall
we make it?"

"I don't know yet, but somehow or other we will get at it."

"May Heaven hear you, my dear Godfrey! And when I think that there are
so many fellows in this world who have only got to rub a bit of wood on
the sole of their boot to get it, it annoys me! No! Never would I have
believed that ill-luck would have reduced me to this state! You need
not take three steps down Montgomery Street, before you will meet with a
gentleman, cigar in mouth, who thinks it a pleasure to give you a light,
and here--"

"Here we are not in San Francisco, Tartlet, nor in Montgomery Street,
and I think it would be wiser for us not to reckon on the kindness of
those we meet!"

"But, why is cooking necessary for bread and meat? Why did not nature
make us so that we might live upon nothing?"

"That will come, perhaps!" answered Godfrey with a good-humoured smile.

"Do you think so?"

"I think that our scientists are probably working out the subject."

"Is it possible! And how do they start on their research as to this new
mode of alimentation?"

"On this line of reasoning," answered Godfrey, "as the functions of
digestion and respiration are connected, the endeavour is to substitute
one for the other. Hence the day when chemistry has made the aliments
necessary for the food of man capable of assimilation by respiration,
the problem will be solved. There is nothing wanted beyond rendering the
air nutritious. You will breathe your dinner instead of eating it, that
is all!"

"Ah! Is it not a pity that this precious discovery is not yet made!"
exclaimed the professor. "How cheerfully would I breathe half a dozen
sandwiches and a silverside of beef, just to give me an appetite!"

And Tartlet plunged into a semi-sensuous reverie, in which he beheld
succulent atmospheric dinners, and at them unconsciously opened his
mouth and breathed his lungs full, oblivious that he had scarcely the
wherewithal to feed upon in the ordinary way.

Godfrey roused him from his meditation, and brought him back to the
present. He was