Page:Life in a thousand worlds.djvu/69

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64
LIFE IN A THOUSAND WORLDS.

to say as I gave them a general description of the world from which I came.

Purposely I used their most cultured forms of expression. At once I rose to a high level in their estimation and they gradually accepted my words as true. With absorbing interest they listened to every syllable and, when I paused, their questions fell upon me in wild profusion. On my account the schools were abandoned, all the leading teachers of five elevations became my astonished auditors, and after every period of sleep I was confronted by still other classes of specialists, some from more distant elevations.

Finally, feigning ignorance, I asked where they obtained their, sustenance, as I had not seen one field in cultivation. They told me the whole history of the toilers in the valley as already recounted, and how the curtain magnates received their tributes which were sufficient to feed all the people of the elevations.

"What right," I asked, "has any one to form a monopoly on sunlight or rain which are free bounties from above?"