a chattel from one to the other. I repeated this in varying
terms more than once. They took not the slightest notice of it, but
waited patiently till I had finished.

"I am busy to-day at the Heat and Light Control," said MZ04. "I fear
that I must now leave you."

"Going to walk?" asked the Professor.

"No. I have taken my exercise for to-day. I shall disintegrate."

Even as I looked at him, his substance became a smoky shadow, shimmering
and vibrating. It grew rapidly fainter and fainter until it had vanished
altogether.

CHAPTER III

"And now," said the Professor, "before we go any further there is one
point on which I wish to be assured. You came from the house of MZ04
just now?"

"I did."

"Did you observe in him as he came up to slope from his front-door any
tendency to puff and blow?"

"He certainly did seem slightly short of breath."

"Poor fellow! Poor fellow! It breaks my heart to hear it. I don't give
him another hundred years to live. Sad that so intelligent a being
should be snuffed out like a candle."

The Professor did not look in the least as if it had broken his heart.
So far as I was able to judge he seemed rather pleased than not.

"That being settled," he continued, "I may now devote myself to you. You
made some protests just now, based, as most protests are, on ignorance.
You are not going to be a slave. You may regard me as your host. I shall
treat you as a guest and I shall look upon you as a curiosity. Tell me
at once what I can do for you."

"I want to know where I am. I want to know the history of this
place--the meaning of first-class and second-class beings--how sex came
to be abolished--what is implied by a power of order from the Central
Office. I have been here but a few hours and I find everything puzzling
and incomprehensible."

"This," said the Professor, "is Thule. I cannot give you its exact
geographical relation to the world, for it has no geographical relation.
How do you imagine that you came here?"

I gave him some account of the shipwreck and of my fight with the
sharks, showing him in proof my large clasp-knife, which, together with
my perspective-glass and some other trifles, I had found means to
secrete in the clothing provided for me by my former host.

"I have no doubt," said the Professor, "that you speak with sincerity.
But you are wrong. That is not how you came here. Nor shall I put you in
possession of the actual facts, or you would be able t