while I got out the back way and hurried over and
make Professor Lawson give the dinner. For Lawson knew everything, and
could meet the guest in a creditable way and save the reputation of the
University. I ran to Lawson, but was disappointed. He did not know
anything about New Zealand. He said that, as far as his recollection
went it was close to Australia, or Asia, or somewhere, and you go over to
it on a bridge; but that was all he knew. It was too bad. Lawson was a
perfect encyclopedia of abstruse learning; but now in this hour of our
need, it turned out that he did not know any useful thing.

"We consulted. He saw that the reputation of the University was in very
real peril, and he walked the floor in anxiety, talking, and trying to
think out some way to meet the difficulty. Presently he decided that we
must try the rest of the Faculty--some of them might know about New
Zealand. So we went to the telephone and called up the professor of
astronomy and asked him, and he said that all he knew was, that it was
close to Australia, or Asia, or somewhere, and you went over to it on----

"We shut him off and called up the professor of biology, and he said that
all he knew was that it was close to Aus----.

"We shut him off, and sat down, worried and disheartened, to see if we
could think up some other scheme. We shortly hit upon one which promised
well, and this one we adopted, and set its machinery going at once. It
was this. Lawson must give the dinner. The Faculty must be notified by
telephone to prepare. We must all get to work diligently, and at the end
of eight hours and a half we must come to dinner acquainted with New
Zealand; at least well enough informed to appear without discredit before
this native. To seem properly intelligent we should have to know about
New Zealand's population, and politics, and form of government, and
commerce, and taxes, and products, and ancient history, and modern
history, and varieties of religion, and nature of the laws, and their
codification, and amount of revenue, and whence drawn, and methods of
collection, and percentage of loss, and character of climate, and--well,
a lot of things like that; we must suck the maps and cyclopedias dry.
And while we posted up in this way, the Faculty's wives must flock over,
one after the other, in a studiedly casual way, and help my wife keep the
New Zealander quiet, and not let him get out and come interfering with
our studies. T