come to ask for your views on the subject. In other words, will you be
good enough to tell me what are the best methods for teaching this
language? Only excuse me, I am very deaf."

[Illustration: LEFT.]

He pulled out of his back pocket two yards of gutta-percha tube, and,
applying one end to his ear and placing the other against my mouth, he
said, "Go ahead."

"Really?" I shouted through the tube. "Now please shut your eyes;
nothing is better for increasing the power of hearing."

The man shut his eyes and turned his head sideways, so as to have the
listening ear in front of me. I took my valise and ran to the elevator
as fast as I could.

That man may still be waiting for aught I know and care.

* * * * *

Before leaving the hotel, I made the acquaintance of Mr. George Kennan,
the Russian traveler. His articles on Russia and Siberia, published in
the _Century Magazine_, attracted a great deal of public attention, and
people everywhere throng to hear him relate his terrible experiences on
the platform. He has two hundred lectures to give this season. He struck
me as a most remarkable man--simple, unaffected in his manner, with
unflinching resolution written on his face; a man in earnest, you can
see. I am delighted to find that I shall have the pleasure of meeting
him again in New York in the middle of April. He looks tired. He, too,
is lecturing in the "neighborhood of Chicago," and is off now to the
night train for Cincinnati.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXIV.

ST. PAUL AND MINNEAPOLIS, THE SISTER CITIES--RIVALRIES AND JEALOUSIES
BETWEEN LARGE AMERICAN CITIES--MINNEHAHA FALLS--WONDERFUL
INTERVIEWERS--MY HAT GETS INTO TROUBLE AGAIN--ELECTRICITY IN THE
AIR--FOREST ADVERTISEMENTS--RAILWAY SPEED IN AMERICA.

_St. Paul, Minn., February 20._

Arrived at St. Paul the day before yesterday to pay a professional visit
to the two great sister cities of the north of America.

Sister cities! Yes, they are near enough to shake hands and kiss each
other, but I am afraid they avail themselves of their proximity to
scratch each other's faces.

If you open Bouillet's famous Dictionary of History and Geography
(edition 1880), you will find in it neither St. Paul nor Minneapolis. I
was told yesterday that in 1834 there was one white inhabitant in
Minneapolis. To-day the two cities have about 200,000 inhabitants each.
Where is the dictionary of geography that can keep p