The prairies were infested with Romuluses and Remuses, flourishing, not on the milk of the wolves, but seemingly on their howls, of which they often gave a pretty fair imitation.
"But Monterey Centre is the county-seat," I suggested.
"It just thinks it's going to be," said N.V.

"The fact is that Monterey County is not organized, but is attached to the county south of it for judicial purposes.

Let me whisper in your ear that it will soon be organized, and that the county-seat will not be Monterey Centre, but Lithopolis--that classic municipality whose sonorous name will be the admiration of all true Americans and the despair of the spelling classes in our schools.

Lithopolis! It has the cadence of Alexander, and Alcibiades, and Numa Pompilius, and Belisarius--it reeks of greatness! Monterey Centre--ever been there?
Ever seen that poverty-stricken, semi-hamlet, squatting on the open prairie, and inhabited by a parcel of dreaming Nimshies ?" "No," said I; "have you ?" "No," he replied.

"What difference does it make?
He that goeth up against Lithopolis and them that dwell therein, the same is a dreaming Nimshi." The beginnings of faction were in our town-sites; for most of them were in no sense towns, or even villages.