hey were in the comfortable frame of mind that is begotten
of a good meal and subsequent good tobacco--over there in Morelia we
smoked the Tepic cigars, which are excellent--that I opened to them the
great project that I had in hand. I told them frankly the whole story:
of my strange adventure in the Indian village, of the paper and the gold
token which the Cacique unwittingly had given me, of the letter that
Fray Antonio had found, and of how our joint discoveries set us clearly
in the way of finding an Aztec community that certainly had existed
unchanged, save for such changes as had been developed within itself,
since a time long anterior to the Spanish conquest of Mexico. I dwelt
with enthusiasm, and I think forcibly, upon the inestimable gain to the
science of archaeology that would result from the investigations that we
intended to make; and I touched also upon the scientific value that
would attach to a careful and accurate description of the effect
produced upon this primitive community by Fray Antonio's preaching; for
this would be, as I pointed out, the first occasion in the history of
the world when a record would be made, from the stand-point of the
unprejudiced ethnologist, of the reception accorded by a heathen people
to the doctrine of Christianity. In a word, I presented the case most
glowingly--so glowingly, in fact, that my own heart was quite fired by
it--and ended by urging them earnestly to join us in a work that
promised so greatly to increase the sum of human knowledge touching the
most interesting subjects that can be presented to the consideration of
the human mind. And I am pained to state that I discovered, when I
finished my appeal, that Young was sound asleep!

Rayburn did not go to sleep, and he did take a certain amount of
interest in what I said, but I was discouraged by his very obvious
failure to respond to my enthusiasm.

"You see, Professor," he said, "the fact of the matter is that I can't
spare the time. I might take a month or two, but you seem to think that
a year is the least time in which any substantial results can he
accomplished. I can't give a year, or anything like a year, to what, so
far as I am concerned, will be sheer idleness. I've got a mother and
sister at home on Cape Cod who depend on me for a living, and I must get
to work again. You see, there is glory enough in all this, and glory
that I should like to have a share in; but glory is a luxury that I
can't afford.