s at their motionless projectors,
and inquired as to the cause of their inaction. In response, the man
addressed simply pointed to the sky, which was of a pure blue. "Yes,"
muttered Mr. Smith, "a cloudless sky! That's too bad, but what's to be
done? Shall we produce rain? That we might do, but is it of any use?
What we need is clouds, not rain. Go," said he, addressing the head
engineer, "go see Mr. Samuel Mark, of the meteorological division of the
scientific department, and tell him for me to go to work in earnest on
the question of artificial clouds. It will never do for us to be always
thus at the mercy of cloudless skies!"

Mr. Smith's daily tour through the several departments of his newspaper
is now finished. Next, from the advertisement hall he passes to the
reception chamber, where the ambassadors accredited to the American
government are awaiting him, desirous of having a word of counsel or
advice from the all-powerful editor. A discussion was going on when he
entered. "Your Excellency will pardon me," the French Ambassador was
saying to the Russian, "but I see nothing in the map of Europe that
requires change. 'The North for the Slavs?' Why, yes, of course; but the
South for the Matins. Our common frontier, the Rhine, it seems to me,
serves very well. Besides, my government, as you must know, will firmly
oppose every movement, not only against Paris, our capital, or our two
great prefectures, Rome and Madrid, but also against the kingdom of
Jerusalem, the dominion of Saint Peter, of which France means to be the
trusty defender."

"Well said!" exclaimed Mr. Smith. "How is it," he asked, turning to the
Russian ambassador, "that you Russians are not content with your vast
empire, the most extensive in the world, stretching from the banks of
the Rhine to the Celestial Mountains and the Kara-Korum, whose shores
are washed by the Frozen Ocean, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the
Indian Ocean? Then, what is the use of threats? Is war possible in view
of modern inventions-asphyxiating shells capable of being projected a
distance of 60 miles, an electric spark of 90 miles, that can at one
stroke annihilate a battalion; to say nothing of the plague, the
cholera, the yellow fever, that the belligerents might spread among
their antagonists mutually, and which would in a few days destroy the
greatest armies?"

"True," answered the Russian; "but can we do all that we wish? As for us
Russians, pressed on our eastern