ming to?" I inquired.

"That?" Captain Vanderdecken responded, indicating the misty outline
straight before us. "That is Altruria--at least it is so down in the
charts, but I have never set eyes on it actually. It belongs to Utopia,
you know; and they say that, although it is now on the level of the
earth, it used once to be a flying island--the same which was formerly
known as Laputa, and which was first visited and described by Captain
Lemuel Gulliver about the year 1727, or a little earlier."

"So that is Altruria," I said, trying in vain to see it more clearly.
"There was an Altrurian in New York not long ago, but I had no chance
of speech with him."

"They are pleasant folk, those Altrurians," said the Captain, "although
rather given to boasting. And they have really little enough to brag
about, after all. Their climate is execrable--I find it ever windy
hereabouts, and when I get in sight of that bank of fog, I always look
out for squalls. I don't know just what the population is now, but I
doubt if it is growing. You see, people talk about moving there to
live, but they are rarely in a hurry to do it, I notice. Nor are the
manufactures of the Altrurians as many as they were said to be. Their
chief export now is the famous Procrustean bed; although the old house
of Damocles & Co. still does a good business in swords. Their tonnage
is not what it used to be, and I'm told that they are issuing a good
deal of paper money now to try and keep the balance of trade in their
favor."

"Are there not many poets among the inhabitants of Altruria?" I asked.

"They are all poets and romancers of one kind or another," declared the
Captain. "Come below again into the cabin, and I will show you some of
their books."

The sky was now overcast and there was a chill wind blowing, so I was
not at all loath to leave the deck, and to follow Vanderdecken down the
steps into the cabin.

He took a thin volume from the table. "This," he said, "is one of their
books--'News from Nowhere,' it is called."

He extended it towards me, and I held out my hand for it, but it
slipped through my fingers. I started forward in a vain effort to seize
it.

As I did so, the walls and the floor of the cabin seemed to melt away
and to dissolve in air, and beyond them and taking their place were the
walls and floor of my own house. Then suddenly the clock on the
mantelpiece struck five, and I heard a bob-tail car rattling and
clattering past the