An hour later, at his guests’ urgent request, the Colonel conducted them to the library there to impart to them information regarding the changed order of things. Having seated them in comfortable armchairs, the Colonel produced a box of cigars.
“You smoke?” he inquired.
Both assented.
“Well,” laughed the Colonel, as he passed the box, “that’s at least one custom which you will find has not changed.”
The Colonel lighted his cigar and settled back in his chair, preparatory to opening his narrative.
“As you have already learned,” he began, “this land in which we live is no longer the Republic of the United States of America. All that is changed. We live to-day in the Empire of the United States under the beneficent rule of His Majesty, Imperial and Royal, William the First, Emperor of the United States, King of the Empire State of New York, Grand Duke of Mexico and Costa Rica, Sovereign Lord of Cuba and the Philippines, Mikado of the Province of Ling-Toa, Nihor of Benaria. The states composing the old Republic of the United States have been consolidated into thirty states, each of which is governed by a Viceroy, excepting the Empire State of New York, of which the Emperor is King. Thus in national matters we refer to the Emperor, but in state matters to the King.”
“An Empire and an Emperor!” gasped the Professor. “The Republic gone!”
“Who would ever have believed it!” cried Kearns.
“To our modern thinkers and writers,” said the Colonel calmly, “the one great, inexplicable thing is that the people of the beginning of this century—the people of your time—did not plainly foresee just what has happened. As our leading historian, Goldstream, points out, all the history of the past, all the indications of the times, pointed clearly to this culmination. And I agree with Goldstream that it would really seem that it did not require a prophet, or the son of a prophet, to foreshadow what actually happened.”
“I am deeply interested,” said the Professor, “yet I do not quite follow your line of reasoning. Will you particularize a little more fully, please?”