me protesting hen,--such things as these,
though they constituted the ordinary fare of Victorian times, would have
awakened only horror and disgust in the refined minds of the people of
these latter days. Instead were pastes and cakes of agreeable and
variegated design, without any suggestion in colour or form of the
unfortunate animals from which their substance and juices were derived.
They appeared on little dishes sliding out upon a rail from a little box
at one side of the table. The surface of the table, to judge by touch
and eye, would have appeared to a nineteenth-century person to be
covered with fine white damask, but this was really an oxidised metallic
surface, and could be cleaned instantly after a meal. There were
hundreds of such little tables in the hall, and at most of them were
other latter-day citizens singly or in groups. And as Mwres seated
himself before his elegant repast, the invisible orchestra, which had
been resting during an interval, resumed and filled the air with music.

But Mwres did not display any great interest either in his breakfast or
the music; his eye wandered incessantly about the hall, as though he
expected a belated guest. At last he rose eagerly and waved his hand,
and simultaneously across the hall appeared a tall dark figure in a
costume of yellow and olive green. As this person, walking amidst the
tables with measured steps, drew near, the pallid earnestness of his
face and the unusual intensity of his eyes became apparent. Mwres
reseated himself and pointed to a chair beside him.

"I feared you would never come," he said. In spite of the intervening
space of time, the English language was still almost exactly the same as
it had been in England under Victoria the Good. The invention of the
phonograph and suchlike means of recording sound, and the gradual
replacement of books by such contrivances, had not only saved the human
eyesight from decay, but had also by the establishment of a sure
standard arrested the process of change in accent that had hitherto been
so inevitable.

"I was delayed by an interesting case," said the man in green and
yellow. "A prominent politician--ahem!--suffering from overwork." He
glanced at the breakfast and seated himself. "I have been awake for
forty hours."

"Eh dear!" said Mwres: "fancy that! You hypnotists have your work to
do."

The hypnotist helped himself to some attractive amber-coloured jelly. "I
happen to be a good deal in reque