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: "When we assembled at the dinner we were miserably tired and worn--but we were posted.

Yes, it is fair to claim that.