“But you forget, Willis, that, though ten years were added to your age, you would not have died a day sooner for all that.”

“Still, it is my idea that the Pope was not much smarter at taking a latitude than Mr. Julius Caesar—­but what are you laughing at?”

“Nothing; only Julius Caesar is not generally honored with the prefix Mr.  It is something like the French, who insist upon talking of Sir Newton and Mr. William Shakespeare; the latter, however, by way of amends, they sometimes style the immortal Williams.’”

“Not so bad, though, as a Frenchman I once met, who firmly believed the Yankees lived on a soup made of bunkum and soft-sawder.  But who was Julius Caesar.”

“Julius Caesar,” replied Jack, sententiously, “was first of all an author, Laving published at Rome an Easy Introduction to the Latin Language; he afterwards turned general, conquered France and England, and gave Mr. Pompey a sound thrashing at the battle of Pharsalia.”

“He must have been a clever fellow to do all that; still, my idea continues the same.  When he began to caulk the calendar, he ought to have finished the business in a workmanlike manner.”

“That, however,” continued Wolston, “he left to Pope Gregory, who decreed that three leap years should be suppressed in four centuries.  Thus, the years 1700 and 1800, which should have been leap years, did not reckon the extra day; so the years 2000 and 2400 will likewise be deprived of their supplementary four-and-twenty hours.”

“There is one difficulty about this mode of stowing away extra days; these leap years may be forgotten.”

“Not if you keep in mind that leap years alone admit of being divided by four.”

“Did the Pope manage to get entirely rid of the fraction?”

“Not entirely; but the error does not exceed one day in four thousand years, and is so small that it is not likely to derange ordinary calculations; and so, Willis, you now know the origin of the calendar, and likewise how time came to be divided into weeks, months, and years.”

“You have only spoken of the Christian calendar,” remarked Ernest.  “There have been several other systems in use.  Those curious people that call themselves the children of the sun and moon, possess a mode of reckoning that carries them back to a period anterior to the creation of the world.  Then, the Greeks computed by Olympiads, or periods of four years.  The Romans reckoned by lustri of five years, the first of which corresponds with the 117th year of the foundation of Rome.”

“And when does our calendar begin?”

“It dates only from the birth of Christ, but may be carried back to the creation, which event, to the best of our knowledge, occurred four thousand and four years before the birth of our Savior.  This period, added to the date of the present, or any future year, gives us, as nearly as we can ascertain, the interval that has elapsed since our first parents found themselves in the garden of Eden.”