see that the gratification is mutual. Do not, however, devote all your time to me; there will be hundreds of young people whom you do not know, and you may form profitable acquaintances. If by any chance we get separated do me the favour of making my house the first place of call. The Central Executive has had the kindness to give me a residence exactly opposite the principal entrance to the Metropolitan Museum.'
Quietly and gently our great express comes to a stand, and we get out. We have no need to trouble about our luggage; it will be taken care of by the officials until we want it. No thieves will steal it; even in the great metropolis there are no prisons. The platform we step on is composed of springy rubber, and the footways in the streets of the port—Port Howard as it is called—are of the same material. It is pleasant to walk upon, and the feet make no sound.
My elderly companion, whom I now know as having a world-wide fame as a mathematician, Andrew Grayson, takes the lead, and in a few minutes we find ourselves in a great hostel with some thousand guests. We find that a vessel leaves in an hour and another in two days, but that the former has to call at two southern ports while the latter goes direct. My companion decides for me; we will wait two days. There are some objects of interest he desires to show me.
It is late in the afternoon. We had partaken of dinner in the train. There was still a couple of hours before dark, but not time for any extended excursion. My companion, whom I discovered to have a weakness, pardonable in a man of his age, for warmth and quiet, elected to rest in his cosy sitingroom. I went out for a walk by the sea shove. It was my first view of the ocean. I had read of it and seen sea pictures, the work of some of the first artists of our planet, but I did not realise the vastness of the scene until brought face to face with it.
Its ceaseless motions impressed me most strangely. It was never still; it appeared like an awful monster having a life of its own. Of course I knew that each time the moon passed over it caused a small tide, and that the outer satellite passed over once in thirty hours causing another, and that occasionally the ocean was acted upon by both at once. There are men of science who say that if we were deprived of our satellites our two great oceans would stagnate and kill us all by their putridity.
I spent hours by the sea shore, and saw how my journey had displaced the constellations. The Southern Cross and the Darkened Window were barely above the horizon, and the moons were both passing overhead. The little one suddenly dropped into the shadow of its primary. I went to my hostel, and full of new and strange thoughts, went to sleep.
Early next morning my friend Grayson asked me to accompany him to one of the sights of Port Howard. I was ready and willing, and in a few
