ringing of the
changes on a geometrical _motif_. These workers wore a peculiar white
uniform without pockets or sleeves. They assumed this on coming to work,
but at night they were stripped and examined before they left the
premises of the Department. In spite of every precaution, the Labour
policeman told them in a depressed tone, the Department was not
infrequently robbed.

Beyond was a gallery of women busied in cutting and setting slabs of
artificial ruby, and next these were men and women working together upon
the slabs of copper net that formed the basis of _cloisonne_ tiles. Many
of these workers had lips and nostrils a livid white, due to a disease
caused by a peculiar purple enamel that chanced to be much in fashion.
Asano apologised to Graham for this offensive sight, but excused himself
on the score of the convenience of this route. "This is what I wanted to
see," said Graham; "this is what I wanted to see," trying to avoid a
start at a particularly striking disfigurement.

"She might have done better with herself than that," said Asano.

Graham made some indignant comments.

"But, Sire, we simply could not stand that stuff without the purple,"
said Asano. "In your days people could stand such crudities, they were
nearer the barbaric by two hundred years."

They continued along one of the lower galleries of this _cloisonne_
factory, and came to a little bridge that spanned a vault. Looking over
the parapet, Graham saw that beneath was a wharf under yet more
tremendous archings than any he had seen. Three barges, smothered in
floury dust, were being unloaded of their cargoes of powdered felspar by
a multitude of coughing men, each guiding a little truck; the dust filled
the place with a choking mist, and turned the electric glare yellow. The
vague shadows of these workers gesticulated about their feet, and rushed
to and fro against a long stretch of white-washed wall. Every now and
then one would stop to cough.

A shadowy, huge mass of masonry rising out of the inky water, brought to
Graham's mind the thought of the multitude of ways and galleries and
lifts that rose floor above floor overhead between him and the sky. The
men worked in silence under the supervision of two of the Labour Police;
their feet made a hollow thunder on the planks along which they went to
and fro. And as he looked at this scene, some hidden voice in the
darkness began to sing.

"Stop that!" shouted one of the policemen, but th