"
"Who are all these personages?" inquired Willis.
"They were worthies of another age," replied Fritz; "very excellent
men in their way, and you are in no way dishonored by being numbered
amongst them."
"Yesterday," continued Jack, "an entire people were upon their knees
before you; they offered up sacrifices, and poured out incense on
their altars for you; fruit and pigs were scattered in heaps, like
flowers, upon your path; the crowd were prostrated by the fumes of
your pipe. To-day--alas, the change!--a cloud of arrows, and not a
single glass of cold water!"
"That gives you an opportunity of quenching your thirst with the
nectar offered to you yesterday," said Fritz; "as for myself, I have
no such resource."
"Yes, that was a posset to quench one's thirst withal; I only wish I
had a cupful to give you. I do not regret having had an opportunity of
becoming acquainted with the people though. They have enabled me to
rectify some erroneous notions I formerly entertained. If, for
example, I were to ask you what air consists of? you would, no doubt,
reply that is a compound body made of oxygen and hydrogen or azote, in
the proportion of twenty-one of the one to seventy-nine of the other."
"Yes, most undoubtedly."
"Well, such is not the case; there are other elements in the air
besides these.
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