all our trust in this representation of brains,
which is singularly in accordance with the fundamental base of our
society, as you must perceive."

"We are a commercial people, too," put in the brigadier; "and being much
accustomed to the laws of insurance, we like to deal in averages."

"Very true, brother Downright, very true; we are particularly averse to
anything like inequality. Ods zooks! it is almost as great an offence
for a monikin to know more than his neighbors, as it is for him to act
on his own impulses. No--no--we are truly a free and an independent
commonwealth, and we hold every citizen as amenable to public opinion,
in all he does, says, thinks, or wishes."

"Pray, sir, do both of the two great political lines send their tails to
the same mills, and respect the same general sentiments?"

"No, sir; we have two public opinions in Leaplow."

"TWO public opinions!"

"Certainly, sir; the horizontal and the perpendicular."

"This infers a most extraordinary fertility of thought, and one that I
hold to be almost impossible!"

Here the commodore and the brigadier incontinently both laughed as hard
as they could; and that, too, directly in my face.

"Dear me, Sir John--why, my dear Sir John! you are really the drollest
creature!"--gasped the judge, holding his sides--"the very funniest
question I have ev--ev--ever encountered!" He now stopped to wipe his
eyes; after which he was better able to express himself. "The same
public opinion, forsooth!--Dear me--dear me, that I should not have made
myself understood!--I commenced, my good Sir John, by telling you that
we deal in duplicates, on a hint from nature; and that we act on the
rotatory principle. In obedience to the first, we have always two public
opinions; and, although the great political landmarks are drawn in what
may be called a stationary sense, they, too, are in truth rotatory.
One, which is thought to lie parallel to the fundamental law, or the
constitutional meridian of the country, is termed the horizontal, and
the other the perpendicular line. Now, as nothing is really stationary
in Leaplow, these two great landmarks are always acting, likewise, on
the rotatory principle, changing places periodically; the perpendicular
becoming the horizontal, and vice versa; they who toe their respective
marks, necessarily taking new views of things as they vary the line of
sight. These great revolutions are, however, very slow, and are quite as
impercep