t must have been,
for the sake of a piece or two of music that suited you, to have to sit
for hours listening to what you did not care for! Now, at a dinner one
can skip the courses one does not care for. Who would ever dine,
however hungry, if required to eat everything brought on the table? and
I am sure one's hearing is quite as sensitive as one's taste. I suppose
it was these difficulties in the way of commanding really good music
which made you endure so much playing and singing in your homes by
people who had only the rudiments of the art."

"Yes," I replied, "it was that sort of music or none for most of us.

"Ah, well," Edith sighed, "when one really considers, it is not so
strange that people in those days so often did not care for music. I
dare say I should have detested it, too."

"Did I understand you rightly," I inquired, "that this musical
programme covers the entire twenty-four hours? It seems to on this
card, certainly; but who is there to listen to music between say
midnight and morning?"

"Oh, many," Edith replied. "Our people keep all hours; but if the music
were provided from midnight to morning for no others, it still would be
for the sleepless, the sick, and the dying. All our bedchambers have a
telephone attachment at the head of the bed by which any person who may
be sleepless can command music at pleasure, of the sort suited to the
mood."

"Is there such an arrangement in the room assigned to me?"

"Why, certainly; and how stupid, how very stupid, of me not to think to
tell you of that last night! Father will show you about the adjustment
before you go to bed to-night, however; and with the receiver at your
ear, I am quite sure you will be able to snap your fingers at all sorts
of uncanny feelings if they trouble you again."

That evening Dr. Leete asked us about our visit to the store, and in
the course of the desultory comparison of the ways of the nineteenth
century and the twentieth, which followed, something raised the
question of inheritance. "I suppose," I said, "the inheritance of
property is not now allowed."

"On the contrary," replied Dr. Leete, "there is no interference with
it. In fact, you will find, Mr. West, as you come to know us, that
there is far less interference of any sort with personal liberty
nowadays than you were accustomed to. We require, indeed, by law that
every man shall serve the nation for a fixed period, instead of leaving
him his choice, as you did, be