very little
time is spent in legislation; we have no bills at shops, and but little
debt, and that is all on honor, so that there is not much
account-keeping or litigation; you know what happens to gossips,--gossip
takes a good deal of time elsewhere,--and somehow everybody does his
share of work, so that all of us do have a good deal of what you call
'leisure.' Whether," he added pensively, "in a world God put us into
that we might love each other, and learn to love,--whether the time we
spend in society, or the time we spend caged behind our office desks, is
the time which should be called devoted to the 'business of life,' that
remains to be seen."

"How came you to Boston," said I, "and when?"

"O, we all have to travel," said George, "if we mean to go into the
administration. And I liked administration. I observe that you appoint a
foreign ambassador because he can make a good stump speech in Kentucky.
But since Charondas's time, training has been at the bottom of our
system. And no man could offer himself here to serve on the school
committee, unless he knew how other nations managed their schools."

"Not if he had himself made school-books?" said I.

"No!" laughed George, "for he might introduce them. With us no professor
may teach from a text-book he has made himself, unless the highest
council of education order it; and on the same principle we should never
choose a bookseller on the school committee. And so, to go back," he
said, "when my father found that administration was my passion, he sent
me the grand tour. I learned a great deal in America, and am very fond
of the Americans. But I never saw one here before."

I did not ask what he learned in America, for I was more anxious to
learn myself how they administered government in Sybaris.

* * * * *

The inns at Sybaris are not very large, not extending much beyond the
compass of a large private house. Mine was kept by a woman. As we sat
there, smoking on the piazza, the first evening I was there, I asked
George about this horse-railroad management, and the methods they took
to secure such personal comfort.

He said that my question cut pretty low down, for that the answer really
involved the study of their whole system. "I have thought of it a good
deal," said he, "when I have been in St. Petersburg, and in England and
America; and as far as I can find out, our peculiarity in everything is,
that we respect--I have som