any tales
that seemed fairy-like to them, and entranced their hearts, even whilst
I angered their brains, which refused to take seriously and as verity
that which their hearts accepted gladly, even as we receive the wonder
of poetry into our souls. But the Master Monstruwacan would listen to
aught I had to tell; aye! though I spoke through hours; and so it would
be, odd times, that having talked long, drawing my stories from my
Memory-Dreams, I would come back again into the present of that Future;
and lo! all the Monstruwacans would have left their instruments and
observations and recording, and be gathered about me; and the Master so
sunken in interest that he not to have discovered them; neither had I
noticed, being so full of the things which had been.

But when the Master came back to knowledge of that present, he would
rouse and chide, and they, all those lesser ones, would fly swiftly and
guiltily to their various works; and yet, so I have thought since, each
with a muddled and bewildered and thoughtful air upon him; and hungry
they were for more, and ever wondering and setting questions about.

And so it was also with those others--those learned ones who were not of
the Tower of Observation, and who disbelieved even whilst they hungered.
Listen would they, though I talked from the first hour, which was the
"dawn," to the fifteenth hour, which was the beginning of the "night";
for the Sleep-Time was set thus, after other usage and experiment. And,
odd whiles, I found that there were among them, men of extraordinary
learning who upheld my tellings as tales of verity; and so there was a
faction; but, later, there grew more to believe; and whether they
believed, or not, all were ready to listen; so that I might have spended
my days in talk; only that I had my work to do.

But the Master Monstruwacan believed from the beginning, and was wise
always to understand; so that I loved him for this, as for many another
dear quality.

And so, as may be conceived, among all those millions I was singled out
to be known; for the stories that I told went downward through a
thousand cities; and, presently, in the lowest tier of the Underground
Fields, an hundred miles deep in the earth below the Redoubt, I found
that the very ploughboys knew something concerning my tellings; and
gathered about me one time and another when the Master Monstruwacan and
I had gone down, regarding some matter that dealt with the Earth-Current
and