d pedestals throughout the ground.

"Isn't this gorgeous, Dick?" whispered Dorothy. "But what do I look
like? I wish I had a mirror--you look simply awful. Do I look like you
do?"

"Not being able to see myself, I can't say, but I imagine you do. You
look as you would under a county-fair photographer's mercury-vapor arc
lamps, only worse. The colors can't be described. You might as well try
to describe cerise to a man born blind as to try to express these
colors in English, but as near as I can come to it, your eyes are a dark
sort of purplish green, with the whites of your eyes and your teeth a
kind of plush green. Your skin is a pale yellowish green, except for the
pink of your cheeks, which is a kind of black, with orange and green
mixed up in it. Your lips are black, and your hair is a funny kind of
color, halfway between black and old rose, with a little green and...."

"Heavens, Dick, stop! That's enough!" choked Dorothy. "We all look like
hobgoblins. We're even worse than the natives."

"Sure we are. They were born here and are acclimated to it--we are
strangers and aren't. I would like to see what one of these people would
look like in Washington."

* * * * *

Nalboon led them into the palace proper and into a great dining hall,
where a table was already prepared for the entire party. This room was
splendidly decorated with jewels, its many windows being simply masses
of gems. The walls were hung with a cloth resembling silk, which fell to
the floor in shimmering waves of color.

Woodwork there was none. Doors, panels, tables, and chairs were
cunningly wrought of various metals. Seaton and DuQuesne could recognize
a few of them, but for the most part they were unknown upon the Earth;
and were, like the jewels and vegetation of this strange world, of many
and various peculiar colors. A closer inspection of one of the marvelous
tapestries showed that it also was of metal, its threads numbering
thousands to the inch. Woven of many different metals, of vivid but
harmonious colors in a strange and intricate design, it seemed to writhe
as its colors changed with every variation in the color of the light;
which, pouring from concealed sources, was reflected by the
highly-polished metal and innumerable jewels of the lofty, domed
ceiling.

"Oh ... isn't this too perfectly gorgeous?" breathed Dorothy. "I'd give
anything for a dress made out of that stuff, Dick. Cloth-of-gold is
com