o be gathering breath,
and a regular throbbing from its cylindrical body was audible. Then it
trumpeted "Galloop, Galloop," and broke out again.

"Paris is now pacified. All resistance is over. Galloop! The black
police hold every position of importance in the city. They fought with
great bravery, singing songs written in praise of their ancestors by
the poet Kipling. Once or twice they got out of hand, and tortured and
mutilated wounded and captured insurgents, men and women. Moral--don't
go rebelling. Haha! Galloop, Galloop! They are lively fellows. Lively
brave fellows. Let this be a lesson to the disorderly banderlog of this
city. Yah! Banderlog! Filth of the earth! Galloop, Galloop!"

The voice ceased. There was a confused murmur of disapproval among the
crowd. "Damned niggers." A man began to harangue near them. "Is this the
Master's doing, brothers? Is this the Master's doing?"

"Black police!" said Graham. "What is that? You don't mean--"

Asano touched his arm and gave him a warning look, and forthwith another
of these mechanisms I screamed deafeningly and gave tongue in a shrill
voice. "Yahaha, Yahah, Yap! Hear a live paper yelp! Live paper. Yaha!
Shocking outrage in Paris. Yahahah! The Parisians exasperated by the
black police to the pitch of assassination. Dreadful reprisals. Savage
times come again. Blood! Blood! Yaha!" The nearer Babble Machine hooted
stupendously, "Galloop, Galloop," drowned the end of the sentence, and
proceeded in a rather flatter note than before with novel comments on
the horrors of disorder. "Law and order must be maintained," said the
nearer Babble Machine.

"But," began Graham.

"Don't ask questions here," said Asano, "or you will be involved in an
argument."

"Then let us go on," said Graham, "for I want to know more of this."

As he and his companion pushed their way through the excited crowd that
swarmed beneath these voices, towards the exit, Graham conceived more
clearly the proportion and features of this room. Altogether, great
and small, there must have been nearly a thousand of these erections,
piping, hooting, bawling and gabbling in that great space, each with
its crowd of excited listeners, the majority of them men dressed in blue
canvas. There were all sizes of machines, from the little gossipping
mechanisms that chuckled out mechanical sarcasm in odd corners, through
a number of grades to such fifty-foot giants as that which had first
hooted over Graham.

T