to think what future we were making. And here it is!"

"What have they got to, what has been done? How
do I come into the midst of it all?" The vastness of

street and house he was prepared for, the multitudes of
people. But conflicts in the city ways! And the systematised

sensuality of a class of rich men!
He thought of Bellamy, the hero of whose Socialistic

Utopia had so oddly anticipated this actual experience.
But here was no Utopia, no Socialistic state.

He had already seen enough to realise that the ancient
antithesis of luxury, waste and sensuality on the one

hand and abjectpoverty on the other, still prevailed.
He knew enough of the essential factors of life to

understand that correlation. And not only were the
buildings of the city gigantic and the crowds in the

street gigantic, but the voices he had heard in the
ways, the uneasiness of Howard, the very atmosphere

spoke of giganticdiscontent. What country was he
in? Still England it seemed, and yet strangely

"un-English." His mind glanced at the rest of the
world, and saw only an enigmatical veil.

He prowled about his apartment, examining everything
as a caged animal might do. He felt very tired,

felt that feverishexhaustion that does not admit of rest.
He listened for long spaces under the ventilator to

catch some distant echo of the tumults he felt must be
proceeding in the city.

He began to talk to himself. "Two hundred and
three years! " he said to himself over and over again,

laughing stupidly. "Then I am two hundred and
thirty-three years old! The oldest inhabitant. Surely

they haven't reversed the tendency of our time and
gone back to the rule of the oldest. My claims are

indisputable. Mumble, mumble. I remember the Bulgarian
atrocities as though it was yesterday. 'Tis a

great age! Ha ha!" He was surprised at first to
hear himself laughing, and then laughed again deliberately

and louder. Then he realised that he was
behaving foolishly. "Steady," he said. "Steady!"

His pacing became more regular. "This new
world," he said. "I don't understand it. __Why?__ . . .

But it is all __why!__"
"I suppose they can fly and do all sorts of things

Let me try and remember just how it began."
He was surprised at first to find how vague the

memories of his first thirty years had become. He
remembered fragments, for the most part trivial

moments, things of no great importance that he had
observed. His boyhood seemed the most accessible

at first, he recalled school books and certain lessons
in mensuration. Then he revived the more salient

features of his life, memories of the wife long since
dead, her magic influence now gone beyond corruption,

of his rivals and friends and betrayers, of the
swift decision of this issue and that, and then of his ,

last years of misery, of fluctuating resolves, and at last
of his strenuous studies. In a little while he perceived

he had it all again; dim perhaps, like metal long laid
aside, but in no way defective or injured, capable of

re-polishing. And the hue of it was a deepening misery.
Was it worth re-polishing? By a miracle he had

been lifted out of a life that had become intolerable.
He reverted to his present condition. He wrestled

with the facts in vain. It became an inextricable tangle.
He saw the sky through the ventilator pink with

dawn. An old persuasion came out of the dark recesses
of his memory. "I must sleep," he said. It

appeared as a delightfulrelief from this mental distress
and from the growing pain and heaviness of his

limbs. He went to the strange little bed, lay down and
was presently asleep.

He was destined to become very familiar indeed
with these apartments before he left them, for he

remained imprisoned for three days. During that time
no one, except Howard, entered his prison. The marvel

of his fate mingled with and in some way minimised
the marvel of his survival. He had awakened

to mankind it seemed only to be snatched away into
this unaccountable solitude. Howard came regularly

with subtly sustaining and nutritive fluids, and light
and pleasant foods, quite strange to Graham. He

always closed the door carefully as he entered. On
matters of detail he was increasingly obliging, but the

bearing of Graham on the great issues that were evidently
being contested so closely beyond the soundproof

walls that enclosed him, he would not elucidate.
He evaded, as politely as possible, every question on

the position of affairs in the outer world.
And in those three days Graham's incessant

thoughts went far and wide. All that he had seen,
all this elaboratecontrivance to prevent him seeing,

worked together in his mind. Almost every possible
interpretation of his position he debated--even as it

chanced, the right interpretation. Things that presently
happened to him, came to him at last credible,

by virtue of this seclusion. When at length the
moment of his release arrived, it found him prepared.

Howard's bearing went far to deepen Graham's
impression of his own strange importance; the door

between its opening and closing seemed to admit with
him a breath of momentous happening. His enquiries

became more definite and searching. Howard
retreated through protests and difficulties. The awakening

was unforeseen, he repeated; it happened to
have fallen in with the trend of a social convulsion.

"To explain it I must tell you the history of a gross
and a half of years," protested Howard.

"The thing is this," said Graham. "You are
afraid of something I shall do. In some way I am

arbitrator--I might be arbitrator."
" It is not that. But you have--I may tell you

this much--the automatic increase of your property
puts great possibilities of interference in your hands.

And in certain other ways you have influence, with
your eighteenth century notions."

"Nineteenth century," corrected Graham.
"With your old world notions, anyhow, ignorant

as you are of every feature of our State."
"Am I a fool? "

"Certainly not."
"Do I seem to be the sort of man who would act

rashly?"
"You were never expected to act at all. No one

counted on your awakening. No one dreamt you
would ever awake. The Council had surrounded you

with antiseptic conditions. As a matter of fact, we
thought that you were dead--a mere arrest of decay.

And--but it is too complex. We dare not suddenly