or other! " " The irreverent mob! " said
the chief of the golden framers—" what can
they know of melons!"

Meanwhile the lost manuscript, containing
a full description of the genuine gourd, had
found its way into a far country, and came
into the possession of a pilgrim, who resolved
that he would cross the desert and find out
the land of the Golden Melon Eaters. Little
did he dream that, at the time when he set
out on his journey, the people of that land
had become sceptical or despairing about
melons, and—to avoid all disputes— lived on
potatoes, while a party of Antimelonites had
arisen, who boldly refused to believe that
ever such a gourd as the golden melon had
existed. Such was the state of the
controversy when the weary traveller came
over the desert from a far country, and first
arrived in the district that ought to have
been cultivated by the Fiat Seedsmen. He
had been reading the manuscript as he came
over the desert, and had said to himself:—
"I shall know the Melon Eaters when I see
them. They are a peaceable, cheerful, and
benevolent people."—Now when he came
into the district of the Flat Seedsmen, there
came toward him several gardeners out of
work, carrying labelled bags and crying,—
"Here's your genuine melon-seed— all flat
and according to the original description.
Here's your melon-seed!"

"Give me a melon! " said the thirsty
pilgrim.

"There 's some mistake about the soil or
the frames," said the first of the Flat Seedsmen;
"I never tasted a golden melon; but
here's your genuine melon-seed!"

"That will not refresh me," said the
pilgrim, as he went on toward the land of the
Rounders. "Come on," said the chief of this
party, " you are fortunate that you did not
believe a word spoken by our neighbours,
who are the most mendacious of gardeners."

"I shall go on," said the pilgrim; "the
true melon-growers are kind and charitable
people, and do not speak evil of their
neighbours."

So he journeyed on, and came upon the land
of the Light Yellows. "Here's your right
colour! " cried one boisterous, idle gardener;
"a pale saffron, according to the original
description, No other shade of yellow is
genuine! "——

"The true melon eater," said the pilgrim,
"judges not by appearances, and boasts not
OI mere forms and colours. I shall go on."

He arrived next among the neglected
gardens of the Golden Browns, who were busily
engaged in pelting stones at the Sandy Boys;
while these were throwing sand over their wall
to annoy the Deep Soilers on the other side.
"Here you have found it at last! " said a
leading man of the party last named: "the
only soil on which the golden melon will
grow." " Nay," said the pilgrim, referring to
his manuscript, "with right cultivation the
true melon will grow everywhere, and the
man who has eaten it wishes that all the
world may taste the fruit. I must go further."

Again he journeyed on, and soon came to
gardens where the ground was strewn with
broken glass and splinters of melon-frames—
memorials of many a conflict between crown-
glass and plate-glass, oak, maple, sycamore,
and wrought iron. "Iron against oak, any
day! " said one of the combatants; " come
on, Sandy Boys, Golden Browns, Rounders,
and Sycamores! whoever wants a thrashing.
I'm the fighting gardener! " " This is
dangerous ground," said the pilgrim, hastening
onward: "the melon growers are no fighting
people. I would rather dwell alone in the
desert than among these people."

So he travelled on until he came to the
land of the Golden Framers. Here, as the
gardeners were all wealthy and influential
men, he found many things to admire in their
elaborate preparations made for A truly
Scientific and Artistic Cultivation of the Golden
Melon. Art, science, and literature were
combined to invest with dignity the pretensions
of the golden gardeners. They had a
Normal Melon School, with many well-paid
professors of a mystery styled, in the
abstract, Melonisation. Here were book-
sellers' shops, displaying in their windows
such titles as The True History of the
Golden Gourd, The Error of Wooden Frames
Fully Exposed, A Treatise on the Unwholesome
Qualities of Melons grown in a Sandy
Soil, A Rebuke to Deep Soilers, and a
History of all the Controversies on Melon
Culture, with Songs for Lovers of Melons,
and Melonite Poems for Golden Framers.
The pilgrim admired the trimness of many
gardens, marvelled to see the wealth expended
on frames and conservatories, and attended
the schools, where he heard lectures on
Melonisation in the Abstract. It is hard to
describe the stage of civilisation and refinement
of ideas to which the people of this
land had advanced. A fact may help the
reader to understand it. It is well known
that, once upon a time, in Europe, vast
speculations were suggested and fortunes were
made and destroyed by a faith in certain scrip
representing Dutch tulips that never existed.
So, in the land of the Golden Framers, the
concrete, practical, juicy melon had entirely
disappeared, even from the thoughts of the
learned people, and had left in its place a dry
abstraction styled Melonisation. It was a
long time before the pilgrim could understand
this highly metaphysical transformation, and
when he understood it, he by no means liked
it; for it would neither quench his thirst nor
satisfy hunger. At last, when he had
attended a long course of lectures, and had
listened to a sort of winding-up rigmarole on
Melonisation in the Abstract, he stood up
boldly in the lecture hall of the Normal
Melon School, and begged that he might
address one query to the very learned professor.