getic and swift.

"What is that doing?" asked Graham, pointing with the empty glass to
the busy figures and trying to ignore the scrutiny of the new comer. "Is
that--some sort of force--laid on?"

"Yes," said the man with the flaxen beard.

"Who is that?" He indicated the archway behind him.

The man in purple stroked his little beard, hesitated, and answered in
an undertone, "He is Howard, your chief guardian. You see, Sire,--it's
a little difficult to explain. The Council appoints a guardian and
assistants. This hall has under certain restrictions been public. In
order that people might satisfy themselves. We have barred the doorways
for the first time. But I think--if you don't mind, I will leave him to
explain."

"Odd" said Graham. "Guardian? Council?" Then turning his back on the new
comer, he asked in an undertone, "Why is this man glaring at me? Is he a
mesmerist?"

"Mesmerist! He is a capillotomist."

"Capillotomist!"

"Yes--one of the chief. His yearly fee is sixdoz lions."

It sounded sheer nonsense. Graham snatched at the last phrase with an
unsteady mind. "Sixdoz lions?" he said.

"Didn't you have lions? I suppose not. You had the old pounds? They are
our monetary units."

"But what was that you said--sixdoz?"

"Yes. Six dozen, Sire. Of course things, even these little things,
have altered. You lived in the days of the decimal system, the Arab
system--tens, and little hundreds and thousands. We have eleven numerals
now. We have single figures for both ten and eleven, two figures for
a dozen, and a dozen dozen makes a gross, a great hundred, you know, a
dozen gross a dozand, and a dozand dozand a myriad. Very simple?"

"I suppose so," said Graham. "But about this cap--what was it?"

The man with the flaxen beard glanced over his shoulder.

"Here are your clothes!" he said. Graham turned round sharply and saw
the tailor standing at his elbow smiling, and holding some palpably new
garments over his arm. The crop-headed boy, by means of one finger,
was impelling the complicated machine towards the lift by which he had
arrived. Graham stared at the completed suit. "You don't mean to say--!"

"Just made," said the tailor. He dropped the garments at the feet of
Graham, walked to the bed on which Graham had so recently been lying,
flung out the translucent mattress, and turned up the looking glass. As
he did so a furious bell summoned the thickset man to the corner. The
man with the flaxen beard