are, I hardly need to say
that the speedy communication which I have been enabled to make with the
Western world is effected by no supernatural agency, but by a wonderful
discovery in the realms of nature, the precise character of which I do
not at present consider it expedient to disclose. Let it suffice, that I
am able to furnish you, at reasonable rates, with the latest
intelligence from the United States of America; and I wish it to be
distinctly understood, that if I ever have reason to suspect that my
movements are watched, or that any efforts are made to detect my secret,
from that time my contract with you is at an end. I also desire to
stipulate that no statement of my transactions with you shall be allowed
to find its way into the public prints, either in China or America. Let
the whole matter remain a profound secret between us; your own interest
will be consulted by this as well as mine. If, indeed, it should so
happen that you should ever see any remarkable and novel movement in
the heavens, of course I cannot hinder you from forming your own
impressions, and making your own deductions from the phenomena.

"And now, gentlemen, every morning between ten and eleven o'clock, I
propose to be here with the papers; _price one dollar per copy, cash on
delivery_."

The bundle, containing one hundred papers, was immediately disposed of;
some gentlemen taking two or three, and others half a dozen.

The tongues of my patrons were now unloosed, and they all acceded
unhesitatingly to the terms which I had proposed. An elderly Englishman,
with a very white waistcoat, and a very large watch-chain, came up to
me, and, patting my shoulder, said, "Why, my son, you have done better
than you promised; you have given us the newspapers in much less than
thirty-six hours after their issue at home."

"Yes, sir," I replied; "I intended to get them here in about _sixteen_
hours; but I thought it more prudent to say thirty-six,
because--because"--I hardly knew what reason to give, without betraying
myself--"because, sir, I wasn't certain how the magnetic currents might
operate."

"Ah-hah-ah, I begin to see. Magnetic currents in the heavens, in the
atmosphere."

"Yes, sir," I answered promptly, "in the _atmosphere_."

This was true enough; but I could not say in the _heavens_, without
telling an untruth; and this I always regarded as a great sin.

"Don't you think," continued my English friend, "that, when you bring
the Amer