Click the highlighted selection from the text that provides the strongest evidence for the answer to Part A. (1) Reflect on things past, as wars, negotiations, factions, etc.: we enter so little into those interests that we wonder how men could possibly be so busy and concerned for things so transitory. (2) [L]ook on the present times, we find the same humor; yet wonder not at all. . . . (3) No preacher is listened to but time, which gives us the same train and turn of thought that elder people have in vain tried to put into our heads before. . . . (4) The latter part of a wise man's life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.

21 balloons is the story of professor william sherman's travels.

in 1883, he set off from san francisco for a balloon ride over the pacific and was found a month later floating with 21 balloons in the atlantic ocean. this seemed an astounding feat and everyone wanted to know what had happened.    

professor sherman was loyal, however, and said he would tell his tale first to the western american explorers club in san francisco, of which he was a member. this built up suspense for several chapters before he began to tell of the wonders of his adventures and the amazing island of krakatoa, an island which had just been blown up by a volcano.  

the residents of krakatoa are all millionaires who live under a "gourmet government" of their own devising. we get to see all the incredible adventures that creative people with unlimited resources would create according to the author.