play on."

"I should think he would have apologized to Pompey," said I.

[Illustration: "'THE CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE UNIVERSE'"]

"He will when Pompey recovers consciousness," said my guide, simply.

So interested was I in the Royal Arena and its recent game that I
forgot all about Jupiter.

"I never thought of Hercules as a football player before," I said,
"but it is easy to see how he might become the champion of Olympus."

"Oh, is it!" laughed the Major Domo. "Well, you'd better not tell
Jupiter that. Jupiter'd be pleased, he would. Why, my dear friend,
he'd pack you back to earth quicker than a wink. He brooks only one
champion of anything here, and that's himself. Hercules threw him in a
wrestling-match once, and the next day Jupiter turned him into a
weeping-willow, and didn't let up on him for five hundred years
afterwards."

By this time we had reached one of the most superbly vaulted chambers
it has ever been my pleasure to look upon. Above me the ceiling
seemed to reach into infinity, and on either side were huge recesses
and alcoves of almost unfathomable depth, lit by great balls of fire
that diffused their light softly and yet brilliantly through all parts
and corners of the apartment.

"The library," said the Major Domo, pointing to tier upon tier of
teeming shelves, upon which stood a wonderful array of exquisitely
bound volumes to a number past all counting.

I was speechless with the grandeur of it all.

"It is sublime," said I. "How many volumes?"

"Unnumbered, and unnumberable by mortals, but in round, immortal
figures just one jovillion."

"One jovillion, eh?" said I. "How many is that in mortal figures?"

"A jovillion is the supreme number," explained the guide. "It is the
infinity of millions, and therefore cannot be expressed in mortal
terms."

"Then," said I, "you can have no more books."

"No," said he. "But what of that? We have all there are and all that
are to be. You see, the library is divided into three parts. On the
right-hand side are all the books that ever have been written; here to
the left you see all the books that are being written; and farther
along, beginning where that staircase rises, are all the books that
ever will be written."

I gasped. If this were true, this wonderful collection must contain my
own complete works, some of which I have doubtless not even thought of
as yet. How easy it would be for me, I thought, to write my future
books if Jupiter would o