OF THE SOUTH SEAS 265 



workers seizing it when the time was ripe, which he be- 

 lieved would be soon. Stroganoff was for an empery of 

 wise men, of scientists, philosophers, and artists, who 

 would kick out the statesmen and politicians, and man- 

 age things by enlightened pragmatism. For the indi- 

 vidual man who sought happiness his formula was as 

 above — retirement to an aery. 



When Kelly was gone to practise on his accordion, — 

 he had opened a dancing academy at Fa'a, — the octo- 

 genarian asked me if I had read of the recent achieve- 

 ments of the scientists who were making the old young. 

 He elaborated on the discoveries and experiments of 

 Professor Leonard Huxley in England with thyroid 

 gland injections, of Voronoff in France with the graft- 

 ing of interstitial glands of monkeys, and of Eugen 

 Steinach in Austria and Roux in Germany, with germ 

 glands and X-rays. Steinach, especially, he discoursed 

 on, and drew a magazine picture of him from his Prince 

 Albert. The Vienna savant had a cordon of whiskers 

 that made him resemble Stroganoff, and his eyes in the 

 photograph peered through all one's disguises. 



"That is what grates me," said Stroganoff. "I am 

 far from all these worth-while things, these men of 

 brain. I knew Ilya Ilich Metchnikoff before he became 

 director of the Pasteur Institute. Here I am a rotting 

 hulk. In the Caucasus I had hephir, and I used to 

 carry kephir grains, and in America I, at least, could 

 have kumiss or Ilya Ilich's lait caille. Look! I came 

 here as Ponce de Leon to Florida to find youth, or to 

 keep from growing older; in a word to escape anno 

 Domini, 



I turned and looked at him. He was a venerable fig- 



