dies retired, leaving Dr.
Leete and myself alone, he sounded me as to my disposition for sleep,
saying that if I felt like it my bed was ready for me; but if I was
inclined to wakefulness nothing would please him better than to bear me
company. "I am a late bird, myself," he said, "and, without suspicion
of flattery, I may say that a companion more interesting than yourself
could scarcely be imagined. It is decidedly not often that one has a
chance to converse with a man of the nineteenth century."

Now I had been looking forward all the evening with some dread to the
time when I should be alone, on retiring for the night. Surrounded by
these most friendly strangers, stimulated and supported by their
sympathetic interest, I had been able to keep my mental balance. Even
then, however, in pauses of the conversation I had had glimpses, vivid
as lightning flashes, of the horror of strangeness that was waiting to
be faced when I could no longer command diversion. I knew I could not
sleep that night, and as for lying awake and thinking, it argues no
cowardice, I am sure, to confess that I was afraid of it. When, in
reply to my host's question, I frankly told him this, he replied that
it would be strange if I did not feel just so, but that I need have no
anxiety about sleeping; whenever I wanted to go to bed, he would give
me a dose which would insure me a sound night's sleep without fail.
Next morning, no doubt, I would awake with the feeling of an old
citizen.

"Before I acquired that," I replied, "I must know a little more about
the sort of Boston I have come back to. You told me when we were upon
the house-top that though a century only had elapsed since I fell
asleep, it had been marked by greater changes in the conditions of
humanity than many a previous millennium. With the city before me I
could well believe that, but I am very curious to know what some of the
changes have been. To make a beginning somewhere, for the subject is
doubtless a large one, what solution, if any, have you found for the
labor question? It was the Sphinx's riddle of the nineteenth century,
and when I dropped out the Sphinx was threatening to devour society,
because the answer was not forthcoming. It is well worth sleeping a
hundred years to learn what the right answer was, if, indeed, you have
found it yet."

"As no such thing as the labor question is known nowadays," replied Dr.
Leete, "and there is no way in which it could arise, I suppose