"May I have the pleasure of accompanying you to the play to-night?"
"Of course you can come," replied Helen; "who is to hinder you? Your membership entitles you, and even your medal would pass you. I am going to strain my privilege and take with me a poor young man who has neither of your advantages. Fred Harley is about to he introduced to our great Earth Poet to-night."
"Well, Fred is a good fellow, and I am glad to see that you interest yourself in his welfare. He has only a few days in town; he has entered heart and soul into helping on my work. I have given him the position of Chief Engineer on the Humbrian Plains contract. It will occupy him, his staff and cadets, and some two hundred men for five years. It is highly probable that he will obtain the Badge at the end of that term if his work is thoroughly well performed, and it will be. He has already obtained a very important concession, The Ministers of Railways, Air Boats and Sea Boats have each given him a Life Pass, so he may travel how he likes, and his journeys will never be charged against his labor."
"I am pleased to hear that," said Helen. "How pleasant it is to live under a government that recognises services and gives rewards, in the world we come from all they have learned to give is a pension or a title. More frequently the latter than the former. The highest of these is a new name and a seat in an obsolete parliament. Some men get a lot of titles; so many that they seem to drag the alphabet after their names."
"Yes, and there is another vast difference. On earth there is no authority that can grant anything equal to that which Fred now has, much less what he will have bye-and-bye. Speaking of earth: do you remember much of it? You rarely mention it to me. To hear you name it is a new sensation, and yet you were conscious of the dual life all the time.
"Conscious on this side; not on the other. My condition was just the reverse of yours. On Earth I knew nothing of Mars."
"You were married and lived a long life there; I have been told that you were over sixty and had a family and that your husband is still alive."
"All that is true but you will excuse me if I do not at present talk about it; I have found it best since childhood never to let the lives mix; I do not think much about my earth life; I believe it was a school or a nursery of a hard sort and that to be born here is a promotion. I have several reasons for not saying much; you will find out some of them when you gain consciousness—but here we are—good afternoon."
"I will not trouble you to-night; I wish our mutual friend Fred to spend a really enjoyable evening and that he is sure to do if with you."
"Oh how kind; have you any more like that. Ta-ta till we meet again."
Sidonian life is evidently a pleasant thing going by the peeps of it that we get from these diaries. No need to lock a door; all amusements free to all. No class distinction in evening or afternoon gatherings or in public
