He could learn as much about the stone age and the bronze age, in America, from President Boomer, as he could about the gold age and the age of paper securities from Mr.Fyshe and Mr.Boulder.
So what better man to meet a duke than an archaeological president?
And if the Duke should feel inclined, as a result of his American visit (for Dr.Boomer, who knew everything, understood what the Duke had come for), inclined, let us say, to endow a chair in Primitive Anthropology, or do any useful little thing of the sort, that was only fair business all round; or if he even was willing to give a moderate sum towards the general fund of Plutoria University--enough, let us say, to enable the president to dismiss an old professor and hire a new one-that surely was reasonable enough.
The president, therefore, had said yes to Mr.Fyshe's invitation with alacrity, and had taken a look through the list of his more incompetent professors to refresh his memory.
* * * * * The Duke of Dulham had landed in New York five days before and had looked round eagerly for a field of turnips, but hadn't seen any.

He had been driven up Fifth Avenue and had kept his eyes open for potatoes, but there were none.

Nor had he seen any shorthorns in Central Park, nor any Southdowns on Broadway.

For the Duke, of course, like all dukes, was agricultural from his Norfolk jacket to his hobnailed boots.
At his restaurant he had cut a potato in two and sent half of it to the head waiter to know if it was Bermudian.

It had all the look of an early Bermudian, but the Duke feared from the shading of it that it might be only a late Trinidad.