with a dubious air of distrust and uncertainty.

"I BEG your pardon," Philip said, drawing himself up very stiff,
and scarcely able to believe his ears (he was an official of Her
Britannic Majesty's Government, and unused to such blasphemy). "Do
I understand you to say, you consider pounds, shillings, and pence
UNREASONABLE?"

He put an emphasis on the last word that might fairly have struck
terror to the stranger's breast; but somehow it did not. "Why,
yes," the Alien went on with imperturbable gentleness: "no order or
principle, you know. No rational connection. A mere survival from
barbaric use. A score, and a dozen. The score is one man, ten
fingers and ten toes; the dozen is one man with shoes on--fingers
and feet together. Twelve pence make one shilling; twenty shillings
one pound. How very confusing! And then, the nomenclature's so
absurdly difficult! Which of these is half-a-crown, if you please,
and which is a florin? and what are their respective values in
pence and shillings?"

Philip picked out the coins and explained them to him separately.
The Alien meanwhile received the information with evident interest,
as a traveller in that vast tract that is called Abroad might note
the habits and manners of some savage tribe that dwells within its
confines, and solemnly wrapped each coin up in paper, as his
instructor named it for him, writing the designation and value
outside in a peculiarly beautiful and legible hand. "It's so
puzzling, you see," he said in explanation, as Philip smiled
another superior and condescending British smile at this infantile
proceeding; "the currency itself has no congruity or order: and