“I sent for my wife and told her how I was situated, and asked for her help, and she thought of a thing which I might have thought of myself, if I had not been excited and worried.  She said she would go and tell the visitor that I was out but would be in in a few minutes; and she would talk, and keep him busy while I got out the back way and hurried over and make Professor Lawson give the dinner.  For Lawson knew everything, and could meet the guest in a creditable way and save the reputation of the University.  I ran to Lawson, but was disappointed.  He did not know anything about New Zealand.  He said that, as far as his recollection went it was close to Australia, or Asia, or somewhere, and you go over to it on a bridge; but that was all he knew.  It was too bad.  Lawson was a perfect encyclopedia of abstruse learning; but now in this hour of our need, it turned out that he did not know any useful thing.

“We consulted.  He saw that the reputation of the University was in very real peril, and he walked the floor in anxiety, talking, and trying to think out some way to meet the difficulty.  Presently he decided that we must try the rest of the Faculty—­some of them might know about New Zealand.  So we went to the telephone and called up the professor of astronomy and asked him, and he said that all he knew was, that it was close to Australia, or Asia, or somewhere, and you went over to it on——­

“We shut him off and called up the professor of biology, and he said that all he knew was that it was close to Aus——.

“We shut him off, and sat down, worried and disheartened, to see if we could think up some other scheme.  We shortly hit upon one which promised well, and this one we adopted, and set its machinery going at once.  It was this.  Lawson must give the dinner.  The Faculty must be notified by telephone to prepare.  We must all get to work diligently, and at the end of eight hours and a half we must come to dinner acquainted with New Zealand; at least well enough informed to appear without discredit before this native.  To seem properly intelligent we should have to know about New Zealand’s population, and politics, and form of government, and commerce, and taxes, and products, and ancient history, and modern history, and varieties of religion, and nature of the laws, and their codification, and amount of revenue, and whence drawn, and methods of collection, and percentage of loss, and character of climate, and—­well, a lot of things like that; we must suck the maps and cyclopedias dry.  And while we posted up in this way, the Faculty’s wives must flock over, one after the other, in a studiedly casual way, and help my wife keep the New Zealander quiet, and not let him get out and come interfering with our studies.  The scheme worked admirably; but it stopped business, stopped it entirely.

“It is in the official log-book of Yale, to be read and wondered at by future generations—­the account of the Great Blank Day—­the memorable Blank Day—­the day wherein the wheels of culture were stopped, a Sunday silence prevailed all about, and the whole University stood still while the Faculty read-up and qualified itself to sit at meat, without shame, in the presence of the Professor of Theological Engineering from New Zealand: