. These form the
centrifugal system. Any house may have a wire in the nearest cable at
small cost.

"DO YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED AFTER THE CONTINENTS HAVE GONE UNDER, AND
COME UP AGAIN, AND DRIED, AND BRED NEW RACES? HAVE YOUR NAME STAMPED ON
ALL YOUR PLATES AND CUPS AND SAUCERS. NOTHING OF YOU OR YOURS WILL LAST
LIKE THOSE. I NEVER SIT DOWN AT MY TABLE WITHOUT LOOKING AT THE CHINA
SERVICE, AND SAYING, 'HERE ARE MY MONUMENTS. THAT BUTTER-DISH IS MY URN.
THIS SOUP-PLATE IS MY MEMORIAL TABLET.' NO NEED OF A SKELETON AT MY
BANQUETS! I FEED FROM MY TOMBSTONE AND READ MY EPITAPH AT THE BOTTOM OF
EVERY TEACUP.--Good."

He fell into a revery as he finished reading this last sentence. He
thought of the dim and dread future,--all the changes that it would bring
to him, to all the living, to the face of the globe, to the order of
earthly things. He saw men of a new race, alien to all that had ever
lived, excavating with strange, vast engines the old ocean-bed now become
habitable land. And as the great scoops turned out the earth they had
fetched up from the unexplored depths, a relic of a former simple
civilization revealed the fact that here a tribe of human beings had
lived and perished.--Only the coffee-cup he had in his hand half an hour
ago.--Where would he be then? and Mrs. Hopkins, and Gifted, and Susan,
and everybody? and President Buchanan? and the Boston State-House? and
Broadway?--O Lord, Lord, Lord! And the sun perceptibly smaller,
according to the astronomers, and the earth cooled down a number of
degrees, and inconceivable arts practised by men of a type yet undreamed
of, and all the fighting creeds merged in one great universal--

A knock at his door interrupted his revery. Miss Susan Posey informed
him that a gentleman was waiting below who wished to see him.

"Show him up to my study, Susan Posey, if you please," said Master
Gridley.

Mr. Penhallow presented himself at Mr. Gridley's door with a countenance
expressive of a very high state of excitement.

"You have heard the news, Mr. Gridley, I suppose?"

"What news, Mr. Penhallow?"

"First, that my partner has left very unexpectedly to enlist in a
regiment just forming. Second, that the great land case is decided in
favor of the heirs of the late Malachi Withers."

"Your partner must have known about it yesterday?"

"He did, even before I knew it. He thought himself possessed of a very
important document, as you know, of which he has mad