Edmund Clarence Stedman 



claim a whimsical consanguinity on 

 the score of our Clarentian prenom- 

 ina. Now, I knew that he was a 

 famous government geodeticist, but 

 had no conception of his temper- 

 ament. Perhaps he took me with 

 equal seriousness. At all events, he 

 was more on his dignity, or gravity, 

 than I ever afterward saw him. In 

 the starry evening we walked the 

 deck together, and talked of public 

 affairs, books, etc., soon wandering 

 to scientific research and discovery, 

 concerning which I eagerly listened to 

 his theories of matter, vortex rings, 

 the Earth's structure, the chances of a 

 future life. I doubt if there was a 

 laugh between us, and am sure that I 

 never again found him so long in one 

 humor. Nor was there anything in 

 this thorough -bred, travel-dressed, 

 cosmopolitan to suggest that he had 

 not spent repeated seasons upon the 

 hemisphere to which we were bound. 

 203 



