He is off Sandy Hook. The committees will go down to
meet him, now, and escort him in. There will be ceremonies and
delays; they won't he coming up the Bay for a considerable time,
yet. It is several billion miles away, anyway."
"_I_ could have been a barkeeper and a hard lot just as well as
not," says I, remembering the lonesome way I arrived, and how there
wasn't any committee nor anything.
"I notice some regret in your voice," says Sandy, "and it is
natural enough; but let bygones be bygones; you went according to
your lights, and it is too late now to mend the thing."
"No, let it slide, Sandy, I don't mind. But you've got a Sandy
Hook HERE, too, have you?"
"We've got everything here, just as it is below. All the States
and Territories of the Union, and all the kingdoms of the earth and
the islands of the sea are laid out here just as they are on the
globe--all the same shape they are down there, and all graded to
the relative size, only each State and realm and island is a good
many billion times bigger here than it is below. There goes
another blast."
"What is that one for?"
"That is only another fort answering the first one. They each fire
eleven hundred and one thunder blasts at a single dash--it is the
usual salute for an eleventh-hour guest; a hundred for each hour
and an extra one for the guest's sex; if it was a woman we would
know it by their leaving off the extra gun.
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