tion," said Frank.

"It is a pleasure to get information, even if it sometimes has to be
acquired under difficulties, and it is equally pleasing to impart it to
those who will make use of it," was Mr Ross's reply.

"I am sure," said Sam, "we will have a deal to talk about when we return
home next summer. The only thing that is bothering me is that lots will
say that it is only a pack of lies that I am trying to cram down their
throats."

"Well, then," replied Frank, "we will not be the only returned
travellers whose veracity will be questioned. Don't you remember, Sam,
about the first ambassadors to England from a tropical country in the
south of Asia, that when they returned home they were rash enough to say
that in England sometimes in winter the water became hard enough to walk
on. Then the king was so mad at them for telling such monstrous lies
that he immediately handed them over to the executioner and had them
shortened by the length of their heads."

"I wonder what he would have done with me," said Sam, "after I had
enlightened him on some of the facts of this country, for that mere
trifle of a statement about ice forming on a river in England was a
mighty small incident, in comparison with what I have here discovered."

"What would you tell him," asked Alec, "supposing the old rascal were
still alive, and should ask you to visit him and then set your tongue a-
wagging?"

"Sure," replied Sam, without any hesitancy, "if his Satanic majesty--I
beg his pardon, that Siamese king--wanted any more water information, I
would say to him, `Sire, your majesty, once, in a fit of indignation at
the doing of a stable man, called Pasche, I seized a bucket of water,
just drawn, and up with it to throw over the fellow, and, wonderful to
relate, it just hit him in chunks of ice as dry as marble.'"

"Well, we know that is true," said Alec; "but supposing the old fellow
still left your head on your shoulders, what next would you tell him?"

"If the old questioner still wanted anything more about liquid matter, I
would just inform him that we carry the milk of our cows wrapped up in
old newspapers, and that it keeps that way for months, as solid and tidy
and handy as a brickbat in the end of a stocking."

"If he could stand that and let you survive, what next?" said Frank.

"I fancy I would confound his intellect by telling him that the breath-
laden air of the church, one bitterly cold Sunday, where some hundreds
of I