Poor Richard's Printshop

Thought-Provoking Book-Length Super Science Novel By Science Fiction's Best Loved and Best Known Satirist!

The leaping blue atomic flames that belched from Hannibal Spratt's exploding time-machine sucked Harry and Celia, two present-day humans, into the mad, mechanical empire of 2439 Tranerica, where interstellar mechanisms held men and women in Robot slavery!

CHAPTER I

IN THE Crystal Room

HANNIBAL FAIRCHILD SPRATT the Seventh, the sole surviving heir of the great Spratt-Fairchild dynasty and the ruler of all Tranerica (formerly America), sat in the Crystal Room of his castle above the Hudson. Through the clear glittering walls of a dome-shaped chamber that arched two hundred feet above him, the winter sun shone in remote, chilly splendor. The rays, filtering in as through a layer of ice, gave a bluish, rather ghostly complexion to Spratt as he idled in his cushioned chair; they lent a cold accentuation to the baldness of his polished pate, to the outlines of his pallid, puffy face and knob-like chin, and to his stumpy form, arrayed in a purple, bejeweled, toga-like robe.

With a yawn, he slowly lifted himself out of his chair, and ran his fingers across the keyboard of a five-foot machine, with something of the appearance of a greatly enlarged typewriter. Instantly a door to his rear slammed to a close; another door far in front of him turned outward; a partition in the glass roof opened slightly, admitting the outer air; a wire along the wall began moving, and bore a lighted cigarette almost to his lips; a paper came rattling in through a little tube, and opened as though moved by invisible hands; and—best of all, for it brought a light to the ruler's, cloudy gray eyes!—a tray with a decanter of some sparkling red liquid glided in along two little rails placed just above the floor.

As Spratt sipped the beverage, he chanced to let his gaze rest on a large printed sheet that cut off the light on a segment of the glass wall a few yards away. "By the blue lightnings," he muttered, "it's time to tum a new leaf!" And he pressed another key on the type-writer-like instrument; and a lever reached out automatically, and tore off the printed sheet. "December 31, 2438," it had read. But in its place appeared a paper with the notation, "January 1, 2439."

Having finished his drink, Spratt thrust the cigarette between his lips, and strolled listlessly across the room. He stared out through the wall—which, being entirely of glass, was like one great continuous window—and saw the river glistening fifteen hundred feet below. Bordering the water on both shores and reaching into the distance as far as his somewhat dim sight could follow, he saw the gigantic black bulks of the "Hives"—those enormous buildings which, each a quarter of a mile high and rectangular, triangular or hexagonal in shape, had existed ever since the Iron Renaissance of the twenty-second century. The eyes of the ruler, as he glanced out at those huge familiar structures, scarcely noted how closely they were packed together, windowless and forbidding; or how, in the narrow aisles between them, a darkness as of midnight reigned, except when now and then a light flashed and went out in their vague depths, like the signal lamp of some soul astray in Purgatory.

SPRATT yawned once more, and looked bored; a sigh came from between his heavy lips. "This business of being a dictator isn't what it used to be," he reflected, gloomily. "Everything runs so smoothly, there's nothing left for me to do. Why, there hasn't even been a revolt for seventy-five years. They say that dear old great-granddad, Hannibal Fairchild Spratt the Fourth, had a cracking good time putting down the insurrection of the Mill Robots. But that was way back in 2362. Then his father, Hannibal Fairchild Spratt the Third, had to liquidate ten thousand conspirators who were plotting against his life. That was more than a hundred years ago. And, before that time, the first two members of their dynasty had to keep things humming to cut down their enemies and stay on their thrones. But look at me! Nothing to do but press buttons all day. No one would even think of questioning my authority. I don't have to issue commands; I'm obeyed automatically. And, all the while, I'm so weary of the whole thing I often think of taking one long jump into the Hudson and ending it all."

Dismally the sovereign glanced down at the waters, still glittering in the noonday sun despite the shadowing towers that arose on all sides. Then irresolutely he ambled away; turned a switch; entered a little plush-lined car that rolled in through a door which opened as if of its own volition; pulled a second switch; and went gliding away through long steel-lined corridors. As he shot rapidly forward, doors opened before him and closed behind him with perfectly timed regularity, although no human operator was visible; lights gleamed and vanished; the car turned curves and descended grades although the rider did nothing to guide it; and finally it came to a halt in an immense room marked "Science Laboratory."

Well, might as well go on with my experiments," Spratt reflected. For he had one great secret vice; frequently, when bored with everything else in life, he would find amusement and relaxation in his scientific investigations. Just now he was on the trail of a discovery which, he thought, would startle even a century that had all but lost the capacity for enthusiasm.

The moment he entered the laboratory, he was a transformed man. With something of an inventor's natural pride, he glanced at the great machine that towered above him, with coils as of monstrous exposed entrails, and projecting pipes as of factory smokestacks and tall dials, and wires and wheels intricately interwoven, and a dark buzzing something in his heart, which might have reminded one of a dynamo purring. Certainly, the machine was unlike anything else which existed even in the mechanical twenty-fifth century; and Spratt, as he stared up at it, forgot that he was the head and ruler of all Tranerica, forgot all the monotony and ennui of a dictator's life, forget everything except that he was on the road to a great scientific discovery.

"OUR age has made marvelous progress in its command of invisible rays," he meditated, as he plunged a corkscrew-like steel device down a long tube and caused a sheet of red lightning to flash across the room. "We have solved the problem of the distant control of moving cars, doors, elevators, aircraft and the like. But in one respect we've never gone very far. For the last five centuries, our knowledge of the fourth dimension has been confined mostly to theory. Except, of course," he added, with a chuckle of sly satisfaction as a wave of blue flame crackled in front of him, "for my machine!"

"It's not perfect yet," he went on, while his hands deftly manipulated a lever, "but it takes advantage of a new principle. It's evident that the rays of the fourth dimension must impinge on those of the third, since all the universe is really one. At the point where they impinge, it may be possible to pass from one dimension to the other. The means we may be able to shift to another position in time, since time, as has been brought out centuries ago, is the fourth dimension of space. Or, on the other hand, we may bring objects out of some other place in time into the year 2438—no, 2439. Well, isn't that what I've really done already?"

While his fingers still pulled at the levers of the machine, Spratt glanced behind him to a great glass case, where a curious assortment of bric-a-brac had been accumulated. There was a fragment of an old, mouldy, broken vase, bearing an Etruscan inscription; a desiccated seven-foot bone, which might have belonged to a dinosaur; a Medieval steel helmet, badly eaten by rust; the shattered half of what looked a little like a bronze Buddha; and—the prize and crown of the collection!—an electric light bulb which may have dated back as far as the mid-twentieth century, its fractured antique filament still distinctly visible in the glass interior.

"With such objects already gathered from the past, by causing it to merge with our own dimension," reflected Spratt, permitting himself an inventor's natural pride, "there is no telling where we may not end. Yes! I may yet be known to the world as something more worthwhile than a dictator!"

Long and lovingly he peered at the curios in his glass case—so long and lovingly, in fact, that he may have become a trifle careless. His fingers moved almost automatically among a great array of switches and levers, as numerous as the keys on a piano; and his eyes did not closely follow what his hands were doing. Accordingly, he may have pulled the wrong rod—at least, this is how he afterwards explained the matter to himself—with the result that Hannibal Fairchild Spratt the Seventh received the greatest shock that had come to him in all his forty-nine years on earth.

All at once the room seemed deluged in a flood of leaping blue fire. There came a detonation as of exploding dynamite; the upper portions of the dimension-machine flew apart, and crashed against the ceiling as if shot out of a trench mortar; the walls shook, the floor heaved like the deck of a vessel pitching at sea; and green and purple lights succeeded the blue in the split fraction of a second. Then there came the sound of heavy objects thudding; and finally, while a rain of debris showered to all parts of the room, a cry as of some being in agony came from the depths of the shattered machine; and then by degrees all grew still.

STUNNED by the concussion, Spratt picked himself up from a corner of the room, into which he had been providentially hurled. A fragment of flying steel as long as his arm had missed his head by less than the width of his small finger, yet he had not entirely escaped injury. His neatly shaven lower lip was bleeding; there was a blue gash beneath his left eye; the sleeves of his toga were torn, and the gown was streaked and speckled with machine oil; moreover, his shin was bruised so painfully that he groaned. Nevertheless, Spratt felt fortunate as he arose to his feet; for he knew that he escaped destruction by a hair's breadth.

"By the white fires!" he thought, as he gloomily surveyed the dimension-machine, which now was little more than a twisted mass of wreckage. "This ends my experiments with super-space! Ah, well! I suppose I'll have to resign myself. I'll never be anything more for the rest of my life than dictator of half the world!"

Mournfully he continued his ruminations, as he mopped a perspiring brow. "Mighty lucky _I took the precaution of making the laboratory soundproof. Otherwise, the explosion would have been heard, and then wouldn't I be the laughing stock of two continents! Not openly, of course," he rambled on, "for people still value their lives!"

He took a step forward to examine the ruins; and, as he did so, he received a shock only slightly less than that of the explosion. A low moan came to his ears; and something stirred slightly amid the debris. Then, while he paused thunderstricken, he heard a second moan from a different direction; and something else moved amid the wreckage.

Spratt's first impulse was to flee. Had he not been a son of the matter-of-fact twenty-fifth century, which had long ceased to believe in ghosts, hauntings, and other such unscientific nonsense, he might even have been filled with superstitious terror. Nothing was more certain than he had been alone in the room only a minute before—whence, therefore, the moans and the mysterious movements? The situation was one to daunt even a braver man than Spratt; hence it is no wonder if he trembled a little and felt his scalp prickling; while old ancestral fears, reviving from the childhood of the race, leapt up in his heart, and turned his knees to water.

Within a second or two, the moans were repeated—and from two separate directions! And Spratt, as he backed up slightly, with a wildly hammering heart, thought of the secret button near the door, which he need only press in order to send a score of mechanical policemen clattering to his aid. But before he could get within yards of the button, something occurred which held him riveted to one spot and caused his eyes almost to pop out of his head. He heard still another moan, followed by a much more vigorous stirring amid the ruined machinery; then something pushed itself up out of the confusion of wires, wheels and rods, and, with a prodigious heaving movement, threw the obstructions out of its way, and staggered to its feet.

Stricken speechless, Spratt stood face to face—with another man! And what a man! More than six feet tall and with shoulders like a bullock's, he tossed a mane of touseled red hair and stared about him in a dazed way through wide blue eyes. He was beardless, "but wore a moustache—as no man had done for centuries! And his clothes—they were like articles straight from a museum! He wore tight-fitting dark trousers, surmounted by an equally tight-fitting dark jacket—in the absurd ancient style! Around his neck he wore a colored rope! His feet were hidden in shining black cases instead of being displayed in sandals! Even had his garments not been rumpled and soiled he could have shone in a masquerade without further make-up!

AFTER glancing about him for a moment as if stunned, the stranger let a startled exclamation come to his lips. "Where am I? And you—who are you?"

Spratt noted what a strange enunciation the man had. It was clear that he was speaking English, and yet it was hard, very hard, to make out what he was saying.

"I—I don't know what happened to me," continued the newcomer, rubbing his hand across his forehead, as if to wipe away the mists. "We—we were up there together on the hilltop—and suddenly everything went blank." And then, as recollection came flashing back, he cried out sharply, almost furiously, "She! Tell me-where is she?"

But before Spratt had had time to answer—indeed, before he had quite made out the meaning of these words-the stranger's attention was caught by another groan from amid the tangles of broken machinery. And he wheeled about, and frantically began working amid the wreckage, which he swept aside with swift and powerful strokes. "Celia!" he cried, in tones of tenderness and alarm. "Celia, dearest! Are you hurt? Are you hurt?"

"No, not much, darling, not much," came the reply, in a softer voice; and, a moment later, another figure stood at his side.

"By the red furies, can it be that fairies are real?" thought Spratt, as, with a gasp, he gazed at the second stranger—a slender, fragile figure all clad in shimmery white, with flowing hair of such a rich golden and delicate features with such an innocent, pansylike grace that for a moment the dictator wondered whether he were not subject to hallucinations, and were not beholding an apparition rather than a breathing woman.

CHAPTER II

Unexpected Visitors

FOR a long, silent minute Spratt stood staring at the two strangers in a fascinated surprise equalled only by the astonishment with which they stared back at him. But gradually, as the hazes cleared from his mind, the inventor realized what had happened. The dimension machine had snatched these beings out of another century! By accident, they had been at the point where the dimensions merged, and had been hurled into the twenty-fifth century from some remote age. It was evident that they were very ancient, not only from the cut of their clothes, but from—

Spratt's reveries were interrupted by the voice of the girl—a full-throated, richly musical voice such as he did not remember ever having heard before.

"Where—where are we? What—what has happened?" she ejaculated, still somewhat dazed, as she leaned against the man for support.

"Never mind, sweetheart, it will be all right," he soothed, bending over her solicitously. "It all seems like some bad practical joke, doesn't it?"

Spratt, although he made every effort, could not quite catch the meaning of these words; but he realized that it was about time for him to say something. Accordingly, he stepped forward, with a gracious sweep of his left arm, following the best twenty-fifth century standards of etiquette; and he addressed the young lady by the name he had heard the man employ.

"You are very welcome, sweetheart," he began, with what he thought to be extraordinary politeness from one in his high position. But he stopped short very suddenly, feeling that he had erred somehow; he did not like the quiver of revulsion that passed through the girl's frame, nor the icy glitter that came into the man's eyes.

"I do not know who you may be," declared the latter, taking a pugnacious forward stride, "but you assume strange liberties on short acquaintance!"

"Would you mind repeating that?" requested the dictator, mildly. "You pronounce English with such a quaint accent, I'm afraid I didn't catch one word."

The stranger's reply was a burst of mocking laughter. "Quaint accent? Why, you ought to hear yourself! You've got the damnedest foreign twist to your tongue I ever heard. Any one would know you hadn't been in the country a year!"

"I've been here all my life, sir!" snorted Spratt, indignantly, when he had caught the gist of the latter remark. "I suppose you've been wearing that circus costume, too, all your life?" sneered the stranger, with a gesture toward Spratt's bejeweled purple toga, now smeared and spattered with machine oil. "Don't you think it's time to cut out the comedy? What in hell's name did you do to us anyway? Knock us cold, then kidnap us?"

"Knock you cold? Kidnap you? Circus costume?" repeated the dictator, with a puzzled expression. "I do not know those words. They have a very queer antique sound. If you will excuse me, I shall investigate." While his visitors looked on with wide, gaping eyes he pressed a lettered button that stood with hundreds of others on a dial at one end of the room. A few seconds passed in silence; then a panel on the wall rattled open, and a huge volume slid in through a pneumatic tube and arranged itself neatly on a table.

"THIS dictionary isn't exactly up-to-the-minute," remarked Spratt, as he thumbed through the thousands of pages. "It dates back to the late twenty-four twenties.... Ah, here we are! 'Kidnap. Obsolete. To steal bodily. Refers to a barbarous practice of the Ages of Confusion, no case of which has been known for over three hundred years.'

"So that's what you accuse me off?" he rushed on, looking up and glaring at the man. "Resorting to a barbarous practice of the Ages of Confusion, in order to steal you bodily? Do you give me no credit at all for intelligence?"

"Say, you must be daft!" muttered the man. "I'm not interested in your crazy remarks! All I want to know is when you're going to release me, and this young lady, Celia—Miss Stan-wick."

"Stanwhat?" repeated Spratt. "Stan-wick? What a horrible name! It grates on the tongue like sand! What did you say you wanted me to do?"

"Release us! Set us free! Let us go!" repeated the stranger, with a shout.

"Oh, yes, I see," replied the dictator. "I'm sorry, but it's impossible. The machine is broken, and I couldn't get you back to your own century even if I wanted to."

"Our own century?" echoed the man and the girl, staring at one another in bewilderment.

"That's what I said," reiterated Spratt. "I can tell from your clothes, and also from your speech, that you come from somewhere in the Ages of Confusion. Maybe even as far back as the year 2000."

The newcomers stood regarding Spratt in a quizzical silence, as if not knowing whether he were jesting or a lunatic.

"By the way, just what year was it before your change of dimension?" he inquired. "You know damn well it's 1938!" came the man's growled reply.

"1938? Well, well, well, isn't that interesting? Why, that's much further back than I'd dare to hope! Before the first flush of the Mental Revival! Now I know why your speech and manners are so uncouth. Of course, you're not to be blamed for the backwardness of your age. I congratulate you—congratulate both of you on escaping from the Dark Generations into an enlightened century!"

"Say, I can't make out half of what you're saying, but you ought to go on the stage, you say it so well!" growled the man.

"He'd look wonderful in the movies, wouldn't he," tittered the girl.

"I consider it a piece of rare luck to have met you," continued Spratt, who had not caught the drift of the last remarks. "I've always wondered how it was possible for any one to live at all in the Dark Generations—and now to have first-hand information!—why, it's worth half my empire. Consider yourselves my guests, both of you, so long as you remain in Tranerica.—which, I trust, will be for life. You particularly," he concluded, with an ogling smile at Celia, who frowned in reply and averted her fair head.

While Spratt was making this speech, the red-haired man had sidled over to the table, on which lay the dictionary, whose heavy golden cover gave it an unusual appearance. With a gasp, he turned the leaves, struck by the typography, which was of a style wholly new to him; then, upon glancing at the title page, he let out a little cry of astonishment.

"I'll be damned!" he exclaimed, under his breath. And then, in louder tones, "I'll be damned a thousand times!" And finally, at the top of his voice, "Come, quick, Celia! See! Just see!"

THE girl flitted to his side, and her eyes also widened with amazement as she glanced at the lines he eagerly pointed out: Printed for His Honor Hannibal Fairchild Spratt the Seventh. Hudson Highlands. A. D. 2429."

Yet there was an incredulous smile on her face as she turned toward her companion. "Sounds so matter-of-fact you'd almost think it was real, wouldn't you?" she commented, with a little laugh.

"Yes, it's carrying a practical joke a good deal further than you'd expect," he acknowledged, also with an unbelieving smile. "What I want to know is, who in thunder is Hannibal Fairchild Spratt the Seventh?"

This was the dictator's cue. Coming forward with a broad grin on his baggy face, he bowed and made another wide flourish with his left hand, then declared, "My dear friends from the twentieth century, the man you refer to is none other than myself. Since you would, in the natural course of things ,—h'm—have died nearly five hundred years ago, you couldn't be expected to recognize me. But you see before you Tyngall of Tranerica!"

Having made this announcement, the speaker stood erect and impressive, with a proud light in his glance, as if expecting his hearers to fall down on their knees before him.

But, to his surprise, they did not seem overwhelmed; on the contrary, amused sparkles played in their eyes.

"The what, did you say?" demanded the red-haired stranger, a little in the manner of one humoring a child.

"The Tyngall of Tranerica!" repealed Spratt, imposingly. "Tyngall of Tranerical"

"Afraid I don't get you," stated the stranger.

The girl, meanwhile, had turned her back, and was struggling hard to restrain her laughter.

"Well, I've said it as plainly as I know how," returned Spratt, dejectedly. And then, as if a burst of light had come over him, he exclaimed, "Of course! Oh of course! I should have known! In your day, Tranerica wasn't called Tranerica at all. It wasn't until the twenty-second century that the term came into use, a corruption of the old Trans-America. So let me explain again, my friends. What you see before you is the Tyngall of Trans-America."

The strangers still looked blank. "What's a Tyngall?" they inquired.

"Oh, by the spitting lightnings, don't you know that, either? But naturally not, naturally not," he continued in the manner of one suddenly recodocting something. "The word was only introduced by my renowned forebear, Hannibal Fairchild Sprat the First, commonly known as the Great. It was a name he took in place of the plebeian designation of king, dictator, or emperor. It means ruler of the world."

THE two visitors were exchanging significant glances, in which amusement alternated with a faint pity. "Poor fellow! He's nuts!" the man whispered to the girl; and she nodded back expressively.

"Poor fellow! Nuts! I do not know what those expressions meant" reflected Spratt whose keen ears had caught the words. "I will remember to look them up in the dictionary." And then, in majestic tones, "You people do not seem pleased to have the honor of speaking to the Tyngall!"

"Oh, we—we are overcome, Your highness!" declared the red-haired one, bowing to the floor with a gesture of mock courtesy.

"Will your Eminence accept our profoundest obeisance!" exclaimed the girl, also bowing; but she was unable to keep back the giggles that struggled to her throat.

"Was every one in the twentieth century like you?" thundered the Tyngall, scowling in high displeasure. "Was it your custom to make mock of solemn things? Do you not realize that if any one else in all Tranerica spoke to me in such a fashion, I would touch a button that would send a death-bolt shivering through his body? From the barrens of the Yukon to the plains of Patagonia, and from the waters of the Atlantic to those of the Pacific, I am absolute lord and master—I alone, the undisputed Tyngall!—and there is none who would dare to anger me!"

These words were spoken with an assurance, an air of self-importance that could not but sober the hearers a little. The laughter died from the girl's lips; the man's attitude became rigid and controlled. Though neither of them doubted that they were face to face with a lunatic, they also realized that he might prove dangerous if goaded too far.

"I see that you question my assertions," continued Spratt, still with a frown. "You would not only challenge my integrity; you would deny the evidence of your own senses. They say you ancients were a stubborn crowd, who wouldn't believe much of anything, except a lot of gibberish accepted on faith. But I never suspected how stupid you could be. However, if what you want is more proof, you shall have it!"

Even as he spoke, he pulled a lever, and a panel on the wall rattled open, revealing a glass partition facing the river. Below them, for endless distances, the huge black bulks of the "Hives" towered on both sides of the stream.

"Look!" commanded the dictator. "Then tell me if you had anything like that in the twentieth century!" The man and girl hastened to do as directed. At the first glimpse, they reeled a little, like persons who have been struck a blow; they gasped, and let out low startled exclamations; and the girl staggered against the man for support.

"Harry! Harry darling!" she cried, in a half fainting condition. "Is it real? Or am I dreaming?"

For several long silent seconds Harry continued staring at those colossal black structures that lined the river. Then slowly he declared, "I guess we're both dreaming."

"No, no, we're not!" she wailed reviving and springing out of his arms as realization came upon her. "It's true! It's true! We—we've gone to another age! We'll never—never see our own world again!"

"Well, what of it, dearest?" he soothed, passing one hand consolingly over her glistening golden hair. "I still can't believe it's not some sort of trick. But even if it isn't, we've still got one another, haven't we? I suppose we can marry just as easily in the twenty-fifth century as in the twentieth?"

"Not unless I give permission!" put in the Tyngall, glaring ominously at the speaker.

"THINK, dearest, we hadn't much except each other, had we?" continued Harry. "My job as an airplane mechanic—don't you suppose I could get something just as good in another age? Tell the truth, in some ways I'd be tickled. Think how neatly we'd he rid of all our pestering relations."

"Well, that's so," she admitted, looking up at him with an attempt to be brave; but her smile came through her tears. "Still, it's hard to think that father—poor father!—must have passed away centuries ago, and we couldn't even be there to say a last prayer for him."

"He looked pretty healthy to me last week—or five hundred years ago, whenever it was—when he ordered me out of the house, so as to hitch you up with that swilling banker's son. My God, Celia! when I think of that, it seems to me the luckiest thing that could have happened to us both was to get clean out of the century!"

"Well, that is one way of looking at it," she acknowledged, smiling and weeping all at once; and his arms gathered her into a close embrace.

"Come, come!" interrupted the dictator, impatiently. "I can't bear such maudlin sentimentality. You ancients are hard to understand. I should imagine that, having found yourself in another century, you'd have something else to think of than throwing your arms around one another and cooing like two babes!"

Stung by the contempt in Spratt's tones, the two strangers separated and looked up.

"Love-making in public is considered immoral nowadays!" continued Spratt, severely. "However, being only two ignoramuses from the twentieth century, you couldn't be expected to know that. So I'll pardon you this time. But don't let it happen again. It's more than modern sensibilities can stand."

The man and girl said nothing, but still glanced at Spratt as if doubtful of his sanity.

"Now let's get down to something important," he went on, hastily. "The question is, what am I to do with you? Well, I'll decide in due time. First of all, it may be interesting to show you something of the modern world. It will be edifying to see your reactions. Besides, it may help me to break the monotony of life. So if you'll come this way, we'll begin our preparations."

Still without a word, the two visitors followed. But it was coming to them more and more clearly that in some mysterious way, they were subject to the whim and command of this individual with the Purple toga and the outlandish manners and speech.

CHAPTER III

A REALM or WIZARDRY

IT seemed to both strangers that they I had entered some fairy-book realm, where a wizard with his magical wand brought wonders to pass. For the Tyngall merely lifted a small steel rod, and waved it as might a musical conductor directing an invisible orchestra; and instantly a partition in the floor opened and three little cushioned cars shot out, each moving on a pair of broad-based wheels arranged bicycle-fashion. Two of the cars glided up to Harry and Celia as if under intelligent direction; and after they had entered, one in each car, the vehicles darted away again, and whirled them through long lighted tunnels at what seemed breakneck speed.

It was only a minute later when they halted in a room filled with long shimmery rows of blue, green and crimson cloths, which hung from hooks on a ceiling fifteen feet above. "This is the dressery," stated the Tyngall, who had followed close behind. "Naturally, if we are going to show you around, we'll have to array you in respectable clothes."

"Respectable?" echoed both strangers, in one breath.

"Of course. You hardly call those rags presentable, do you?" he demanded, pointing to the visitors' fantastic twentieth century apparel. "I suppose it did all right in your own day, when you didn't know any better—but the world has advanced, my friends, the world has advanced!"

"You don't expect me to put on a stage costume like yours?" demanded Harry. "Stage costume? Stage? You ancients did have the most curious idioms! I merely wish you to dress sensibly and decently. And, of course, you'll have to remove your red hair."

"What?" bawled Harry, with a displeased glance at the dictator's glistening pate. "You mean, cut it off" "Not necessarily. It will suffice to dye it black."

"I'll be damned if I will!"

"You'll be damned if you don't. Do you not understand, sir, we haven't had a case of redheadedness in this country for two hundred years."

"You talk as if it were something like diphtheria or scarlet fever!"

"Well, in a way it is," asserted the Tyngall, with a yawn. "You see, a few centuries ago the racial purists got control of the government. They happened to be black-headed, and proved that blackheads possess all the highest spiritual, intellectual and moral qualities. Lower in the scale were the brown-heads, but the lowest of all were the redheads. This was demonstrated with statistics, compiled by black-headed statisticians. Hence the drive on the reds began. They were herded out of the country; jailed, stoned and burned; their property was confiscated, and their propagation was prohibited. In due time, consequently, their breed disappeared. The movement was called by various names, such as the survival of the fittest and saving Tranerica for democracy—though sometimes, to tell the truth, I've had my doubts. But the old prejudice persists, and today it would be as much as any man's life was worth to appear in public with red hair."

THE Tyngall heaved a long sigh, which was met with answering sighs from the girl and Harry. "Well, in that case," decided the latter, after a silence, "I suppose there's nothing to be done but dye my hair."

"Good! You show remarkable sense, for an ancient!" approved Spratt, beaming. And then, turning to the girl, he suggested, "and now, if you will pass that door to your left, sweetheart—no, no, I forgot, that's not your name, is it?—anyhow, you will find a dressing room, with a mechanical maid to help you."

"Mechanical maid?" repeated Celia, wondering if she had heard correctly.

"Of course. . . Didn't you have mechanical maids in your century? . . . Well, well, well, just imagine! How did you women ever manage? Just go in there, sweet—I mean, young lady, and you will find out everything."

After the girl had left and the door had automatically closed behind her, Spratt pulled a little crank on the wall, and a long metal box at one end of the room clattered open. Out of this case there stalked what, at the first startled glimpse, Harry took to be a man—a man eight feet tall, and with long swinging limbs. A second glimpse, however, showed him that the being had no face other than two small gleaming electric orbs which served in place of eyes. Its arms and legs, as it came clanking across the room, were seen to be of iron; its trunk, beneath the gray toga which it wore, was obviously of the same substance; its head bristled with electric batteries instead of hair; a coil of wires reached out from behind it, and there was a continuous buzzing from somewhere in its heart.

"Didn't you have electrical valets either, in your day?" inquired Spratt, with a pitying expression, as the iron monster approached at a steady stride.

"No, thank goodness!" declared Harry, retreating slightly, although he strove his best to hold his ground.

But he watched in fascinated interest as the automaton halted just in front of Spratt, reached one long arm upward, plucked a violet toga from a hook near the ceiling, spread it out before the Tyngall, and deftly folded and removed the oil-smeared robe which Spratt doffed. The great seven-fingered hands of the machine, moreover, smoothed out and dusted the dictator's new clothes after he had donned them; then, as if under intelligent guidance, turned to Harry and prepared to perform a similar service for him.

"You see, the principle is simple," explained Spratt, as he noted the dumbfounded amazement on his visitor's face. "It works by radio control. Electrical impulses, which I discharge through the air by pressing a button or moving a switch or rod, are transmitted to very sensitive receiving bulbs within the valet; and then, by means of amplifiers—"

But it is questionable whether Harry heard much of this speech. He was too much occupied with the process of changing clothes; and was both amused and embarrassed to see himself presented with an embroidered saffron-colored toga, with billowy sleeves and sea-green decorations. "By heaven," he muttered, as he struggled to adjust the new garb, "it's lucky my friends are dead five centuries, and can't see me now!"

HE had hardly completed his dressing when the dictator, by turning a screw, caused the door to their left to open, and Celia emerged, arrayed in black pantaloons like those of Chinese women, and with an open-necked undecorated black jacket.

"Good Lord, don't I look atrocious?" she exclaimed, blushing. "Is this how all women nowadays are dressed?"

"Naturally," returned the Tyngall, in slightly offended tones. "You can't expect them to wear gaudy clothes like us men, can you? Since nature gave them so many graces and charms, what need have they of rich garments to enhance their beauty? It isn't as with us poor males, who need every bright color to conceal our natural drabness."

"You look good to me, Celia, in any clothes," Harry sought to console her.

"And you—why, good gracious, Harry, you look like a one-man vaudeville show!" cried the girl, with a sudden burst of laughter, as she caught her first full view of her lover.

"One-man vaudeville show? Vaudeville show?" repeated Spratt. "That's something else I'll have to make a note of. I wonder whether it's in the dictionary." And then, looking up with a sudden new briskness of manner, "Well, now that were all nicely dressed, Jet's start on our little journey! "

Before they set out, however, Spratt remembered to procure a bottle of some inky substance, which was rubbed on Harry's hair by the mechanical valet and changed it to the. color of tar. "Ah, now you look almost modern!" exclaimed the Tyngall, approvingly, as he stood back a few feet to examine his metamorphosed visitor. "It's clear, after all, that redheadedness is only skin deep!"

"Now we'll clip off those hairs from your face," continued Spratt, indicating Harry's moustache. "The ancients had a name for it, I can't remember what. No man nowadays would dream of growing such a brush under his nose."

It was useless for the victim in protest. The electrical valet produced a pair of shears, and set to work; and Harry thought it wise not to resist too strenuously, lest some accidental motion cause half of his lip to be forfeited.

"Heavens, dearest, if I didn't know it was you now, I'd never believe it!" commented Celia, ruefully, as she surveyed her transformed lover.

"A great improvement, I'm sure!" contributed the Tyngall. "And now let's see, just where shall I take you first? Perhaps to the Mills. In that case, we will need some special ear protectors."

He pressed a button, and three black instruments looking like earphones slid in through a pneumatic tube. "Put these over your ears, friends," he instructed. "Otherwise, the din would deafen you." The others did as directed, and then seated themselves again in the little cushioned cars. Away they rushed, so rapidly that the wind whistled by them; along twisting, vaguely lighted corridors; down abrupt descents; then up steep grades, and down once more. They had no idea where they were going, and were relieved when at last the cars halted and they found themselves before a huge steel door in a shadowy room reminding them of a railroad waiting station.

NO sooner had the Tyngall joined them than the steel door groaned and opened—and all at once they realized why they had had to wear the ear protectors. Even through the muffling fabrics, they could hear an uproar like that of several boiler works combined—a continuous pounding, hammering, stamping, clanging noise as of countless great iron masses in violent contact. They found themselves stepping into an enormous hall—a hall several hundred yards long and almost equally wide. Its ceiling, supported by scores of branching steel pillars, rose to a height of three hundred feet; its windowless walls were featured by clusters of white lights so bright that the spectators had to blink and shield their eyes; while a fine dust arose everywhere, irritating the throat and nostrils.

All along the floor of this colossal hall, in dozens of mathematically even rows, were machines that towered to a height of thirty or forty feet, with an intricacy of clattering spindles, thumping rods, whirring wheels, and rotating chains. And before each machine there stood a figure that would have seemed fantastic beyond belief had the observers not already known of the mechanical maid and valet. Fifteen feet in height, with iron limbs and body, each of these figures was exactly like every other; each was made in the image of a man, except that its hands were nine-fingered, that it had three electric lights where the face should have been, and that wires ran in and out of its legs and head. And each, standing stiff and erect, was operating with clocklike regularity. First its hands would shoot up, moving the levers of the machine before it; then down with a crash the hands would come, then, after a second's rest, they would rise again, in precisely the same movements as before; and the motions of all the machines were so perfectly synchronized that one was reminded of a well trained military company executing drill maneuvers.

For a minute the strangers looked on, appalled and fascinated; then Spratt motioned them away. And after the steel gate had closed behind them and they were back in a place of relative quiet, he removed his ear protectors, and declared, "It isn't good to remain too long—very damaging to the ears and nervous system."

"What under heaven is it?" asked Harry. awe-stricken. "Why, the Mills, of course," replied the dictator, in the manner "of one explaining to a stupid child.

"But where are the men?"

"What would men be doing in that Inferno? Do you think we are so backward as to let human beings work in the Mills?" Harry and Celia both stared and looked blank.

"Why, ever since the Humanitarian Reform of the last century, we've had machines to run our machines. We find mechanical laborers as far superior to flesh-and-blood laborers as motor cars are to the animals which used to pull your carts—what do you call them?—I've forgotten the name."

"Horses," prompted Harry.

"As far superior to living man as motor cars were to horses. Besides, they have other advantages. Mechanical laborers never grow tired; they never talk back to the boss; they never strike for shorter hours or higher pay; they never shirk, or get drunk; they never form unions, or commit sabotage; they never have to be pensioned off in case of illness or old age; and their efficiency is never disturbed by any psychological quirk. All in all, they constitute the perfect solution of the past labor problem."

"But do you need no living men at all?"

"VERY few. The machines rarely break down. All we require is an occasional superintendent, and a small corps of experts who direct the mechanical workers by remote radio control. The Mills you have just seen are among the largest in Tranerica, but they're many others built on the same plan."

"What do they make in this one?" inquired Celia.

"Mechanical workers. Manufacturing mechanical workers is, in fact, one of our major industries."

"But that means that most human beings are thrown out of work," pointed out Harry. "The unemployment problem must be simply Terrific."

"Terrific? What's that word?" demanded the Tyngall. "Oh, you mean, very bad? Well, to tell you the truth, it was quite troublesome before the Age of Readjustment. 'But my great-great granddad, Hannibal Fairchild Spratt the Third, hit upon the ideal remedy. You'll learn all about that in due time, when we get to visiting the Hives. Meanwhile, don't you want to see a little more of the Mills?"

"Very gladly!" exclaimed the two strangers. And once more they entered the little cushioned cars, and went shooting away through corridors and tunnels.

CHAPTER IV

The Hivites

IF the visitors were astonished at their first glimpse of the Mills, they were to be sheerly bewildered by their later discoveries. They were taken to the Furnaces, where mechanical workers twenty feet tall wielded shovels as large as five-passenger automobiles, and cast tons of coal each minute into gigantic fires. They were brought to the Construction Room, where mechanical workers measured, riveted and carried huge steel beams and girders; they were introduced to the Warehouses, where automatic arms packed and assorted thousands of bales and crates with scientific exactness; they were given glimpses of electrical laborers that scrubbed floors and that painted walls, that plastered and that drove nails, that crawled to fix pipes and drains, that sat at workstools, and that adjusted the lights of the ceiling with their long slender arms.

Eventually the party stopped for refreshments at a little inn where the viands were brought to them by mechanical waiters, after being prepared in automatic ovens by mechanical cools. Next they descended to a point far below ground level, where great vaulted caverns supported by concrete columns spread for miles. All along the ceiling and Pillars were clusters of brillant white lights, so dazzling that the visitors had to be provided with sunglasses; while endless rows of glass cases, separated by narrow aisles, were spread across the floors. Each of these cases was filled with water, which varied in depth from two or three inches to several feet; and in this water green things grew in crowded profusion, in an atmosphere as warm as a hothouse. The visitors were surprised to see ripening tomatoes, strawberries and canteloupes; while the enticing reds and yellows of apricots, plums and cherries greeted them from low, dense clusters of trees.

"You see here an example of scientific agriculture," stated the Tyngall. "Over a century ago we solved the chemical secret of sunlight, and hence are able to reproduce its properties in the white lights you see all about you, so stimulating the chlorophyll of the plants to form starch, sugar and cellulose out of water and carbon dioxide. All agriculture nowadays is accomplished indoors, where we are not dependent on the weather."

"But your plants don't seem to have any soil—only water!" pointed out Harry.

"Naturally not. It has been known for centuries—in fact, I shouldn't be surprised if it was common knowledge even in your own day—that all that plants need for growth is water, with the proper chemicals in solution. We take care to supply these in sufficient quantities—and as a result production is rapid and continuous. I forget the exact figures—but I believe it has been proved that one acre under cultivation nowadays can produce as much as five hundred acres by the primitive methods."

While the Tyngall was speaking, the visitors' attention was attracted to a mechanical Worker, equipped with particularly long slender arms, who came clanking down one of the aisles, plucking the ripe fruit from the trees and depositing it in a large open box fastened to his waist.

"You see, farm labor also is entirely mechanized," continued Spratt. "Even the cows are milked automatically. You have no idea how this simplifies things."

"WHAT I don't understand," remarked Harry, as he observed how efficiently the mechanical orchardist gathered the fruit, "is where the men and women are. Is your whole world inhabited by machines? Do you realize, Mr.—Mr. Spratt, I think it is—"

"Call me Tyngall Spratt and show proper respect!" roared the dictator. "I do not know what Mister means!"

"Tyngall Spratt," continued Harry, undaunted, "do you not realize that we haven't seen any living person except yourself? As far as we can judge, you might be the only man alive in the twenty-fifth century!"

"Well, you shall see, you shall see very soon," promised the Tyngall. "I do not know the exact figures the mechanical statisticians broke down at the last census, two years ago—shut it is believed that the population of North Tranerica alone is not less than two billions. Shall I take you now to the Hives?"

Harry and Celia both nodded; and, accordingly, they left the basement farms in their little cushioned cars, and wove their way hundreds of feet upward by long winding ascents.

"I really must apologize for the Hives," Spratt warned them, before they set out on this new expedition. "They are not as ideal as we could wish, since they date hack to the twenty-second century, and were originally built to house working families. But now that the Reign of Leisure has begun, we've had to adapt them as best we can—"

"Reign of Leisure?" questioned Celia.

"To be sure. Since the machines perform all our services, no man needs to work unless he wants to. In fact, there's no way for most men to work even if they do want to. They are regularly supplied with all necessities—and their days are one long golden opportunity."

"Opportunity for what?" questioned the skeptical Harry.

"Opportunity to develop their higher qualities. But you shall see. Come, let's go."

A few minutes later, having been whisked several miles away, they halted in what seemed to be an enormous dormitory. On each side of a corridor several hundred yards long, a succession of dozens of doors opened; and each door led to a room or a group of several rooms provided with steel furniture and illuminated by electric bulbs built into the walls. None of them, so far as the; strangers could see, had a window opening to the daylight.

"This is a typical floor in one of the Hives," explained the Tyngall. "Each Hive is a hundred and twenty stories high; and there are hundreds of Hives in Hudson Highlands alone. You have seen the compartments occupied by individual families—"

"Compartments? You mean, apartments," corrected Harry. "No, I mean compartments. This word, modern authorities agree, is much more accurate of the two. But let's go on. I will now show you how the Hivites pass their time."

"Hivites?"

"Yes, the inhabitants of the Hives—in other words, the common people. The great masses, who would have had to work for a living in a less fortunate age."

Both Harry and Celia, naturally, were eager for a glimpse of the Hivites. But their enthusiasm would have been considerably dampened could they have foreseen the adventure that lay in wait.

"I THINK we will go first to the Day Rooms," continued the Tyngall. "The chambers where the Hivites pass their daily fourteen or sixteen hours of leisure."

"Don't they ever go out of doors?" inquired Celia.

"Out of doors? Why should they?" returned Spratt, wrinkling his nostrils with a disgusted expression. "Why should any one go out of doors when modern improvements have given us perfect heating, perfect lighting, and perfect air conditioning indoors? No, no, my friends, we don't take any chance of exposing ourselves to the cruel winds, or the blistering sun! That may all have been very well in ancient times, when people couldn't help themselves; but nowadays we are civilized!"

A few minutes later they stood in a corridor before a series of enormous gates, each marked "DAY ROOMS" in blazing red letters. The Tyngall pressed a button, and one of the gates rattled open; while half a dozen mechanical guards, each ten feet tall, stalked out and surrounded the Party.

"What I do not understand," remarked Harry, as they entered the Day Rooms in the midst of the guards, "is that sometimes I see you pressing a button or switch to move the mechanical workers, and at other times they seem to act by themselves, almost as if they had an independent power of thought."

"Yes, it does seem that way," admitted the Tyngall, "but they are always under human control. The workers in the Mills and farms, for example, are all guided by radio waves shot out by operators in a central station, who keep track of their movements by television. In the same way, our guards now are under remote control. But I'm surprised you have to ask about such simple matters. In your own day, didn't you have robot airplanes that could be guided by radio? And weren't you able to set type hundreds of miles away by wire? What we have done is merely to make the natural advance upon such elementary beginnings."

There was much more than the Tyngall said in explanation; but neither Harry nor Celia heard him, for they were both absorbed in observing the Day Rooms.

They found themselves in a series of cavernous connecting halls, with wide vaulted ceilings supported by concrete columns. The whole had been laid out on the plan of a park; graveled walks wound among lawns and patches of shrubbery, and here and there were little ponds where water-lilies blossomed and swans lifted their heads. But the green spaces, pleasing as they were to the eye, were largely hidden from view by the swarms of people, who crowded everywhere as thickly as on the central business street of a large city.

Upon Spratt's appearance, hundreds of them flung themselves on the ground, with cries of reverence and adoration, and shouted, in voices that sounded almost automatic, "Tyngall! Oh, Tyngall! Hail Tyngall!" Many, creeping like animals on all fours, would have come close to kiss the hem of the dictator's robe, had not the swinging arms of the mechanical guards kept them away. Many others, standing erect, gave a military salute; but all alike kept repeating the same cry, which dinned about them with maddening insistence, "Tyngall! Oh, Tyngall! Hail, Tyngall!"

The visitors noted that the men and children all wore bright-colored togas—purple and lavender, apple-green, sapphire-blue and ruby-red—while the women were all clad in unadorned brown, gray or black. None of the men were bearded, and most of them were bald, like the Tyngall; they were all milky pale of complexion, with a tendency to baggy eyes and heavy paunches; and many had long, drawn faces, with down-curling lips that seemed most surprising in view of the boundless leisure they all enjoyed.

BUT how did they pass their leisure? The two strangers were fascinated to note the occupations of the Hivites. Here and there little groups, sprawled on the grass, were absorbed in shuffling minute colored patches of cardboard, and from time to time would break out in loud disputatious cries. Here and there little bands were playing with small balls, which they threw into the air and caught; and here and there parties of youths were engaged in racing contests, or in exhibitions of boxing and wrestling. But a much more popular recreation, apparently, was to lie under a bush and sip a colored beverage out of long-necked bottles—in fact, it seemed that fully a quarter of the Hivites were enjoying this sport constantly. And meanwhile fully another quarter were gathered about little clattering machines, shouting in high agitation as they dropped pebbles through tiny slots, and threshing furiously and yelling like wild beasts when a red dial registered the results.

"What are they doing?" questioned Celia, wondering if she had not strayed by mistake into a lunatics' ward.

"Merely passing the time," replied the Tyngall. "You see, it's quite a problem with the Hivites, what to do with all their time. So they've invented this little game. They're gambling for pebbles."

"Pebbles? But what use are pebbles?"

"None at all. However, since we don't have any money nowadays, we've got to have something to keep the Hivites amused. Pebbles will do as well as anything."

At this instant their attention was distracted by a frenzied outburst, where two of the pebble-gamblers had fallen upon one another, and were pounding and slashing at each other's faces as if bent on murder. "Fraud! Cheat! Bandit!" they both screamed, in outraged voices. "He's' robbed me! He's robbed me! Cheat! Ruffian! Brigand!" And they tore at one another until they were both bruised and bleeding and their togas were ripped to shreds; while the crowd stood about them eager and delighted, and goaded them on with taunts and yells.

"But what's it all about?" demanded Celia. "If they're only playing for pebbles—"

"The psychology of the Hivites is very peculiar," explained the Tynpll. "Having nothing more important to think about, they hoard their pebbles, and consider them priceless. But let them fight it out! A little quarrel now and then helps them to break the monotony of life."

With a shrug, the dictator passed on; and pointed to a walled gray enclosure of about the size of a large house. "Do you want to go in?" he suggested. "That's the library."

The visitors entered, but found to their surprise that there was no other occupant, except one old man who was dozing at the end of a long table, with several great tomes lying open before him. The books, which lay stacked about them in innumerable shelves, were covered with deep layers of dust; the covers were all age-worn and cracked, and a smell of must and age pervaded the establishment.

"The Hivites, I'm afraid, don't care much about reading," declared the Tyngall. "They say the pace of modern life is too fast. They haven't sufficient leisure"

"But I thought you said they had nothing but leisure!" gasped Celia.

"Yes—but not for reading. That requires concentration. Oh, by the way, over there is the case of ancient books. Dates way back to your own time. Maybe you'd like to glance at it?"

THE Tyngall strode over to a shelf where the dust was even deeper than elsewhere, and plucked out a volume at random. "Collected works of Bernard—Bernard what's that?—Shaw, I suppose it is," he deciphered, with difficulty. "Wonder who he could have been? I'll have to instruct the librarian to go over this place sometime, and clear out a lot of this worm-eaten trash."

Celia in turn pulled out a volume, glanced at it with a. stare of surprise, then turned about to exclaim, "What do you think, Harry! Here's 'Gone with the Wind!'"

But her words died half uttered. Had Harry also gone with the wind? He was no longer at her side—in fact, he was nowhere in the library!

With fluttering heart she ran to the entrance, crying as she went, "Dearest, dearest, where are you? Where are you?" But the pandemonium of the throngs outside drowned the tones of her voice. When she reached the library door she saw only the dense crowds billowing about her, throwing their little balls and playing with their bits of colored cardboard. Harry had vanished as completely as though the earth had swallowed him!

CHAPTER V

The Tyngall Proposes

FOR a long, silent moment Celia stood staring into the heedless multitude. Then an excited cry came once more to her lips, "Harry, Harry, where are you?" Some of the passers-by looked up, a little curious, then returned to their games with shrugs and comical grimaces; while, at the same time, she felt a hand clutching at her shoulder.

Wheeling about with the happy thought that Harry had come back, she found herself gazing into the pouchy face and small gray questioning eyes of the Tyngall.

"What is it, my lady?" he inquired. "You act as if you have lost something."

"I have," she declared, gloomily. "I—I don't know where Harry is."

The Tyngall did not appear disturbed. "Well," he returned, with a smile, "we mustn't let little things annoy us. Really, I don't mind in the least, so long as I have you."

"But I'm afraid I mind considerably," she protested, not liking the way he beamed upon her, with a half possessive smile. "Come, let's look for him."

"What's the use?" objected Spratt. "It would be very hard to find him. "You see, we haven't numbered him yet."

"Numbered him?"

"Of course. All the Hivites have numbers: for example, AX 56765, or ZY 42042: That's how we keep track of them. When once a man has lost his number, or hasn't a number at all, here is no system of tracing him among all the millions of Hivites."

Celia still stood gazing disconsolately out into the crowd, straining her eyes to catch a glimpse of a tall, familiar figure. At any other time she would have been absorbed in what she saw: the women amusing themselves by regarding their own images long and steadily in full-length mirrors; the little machines in which the ladies put their faces, screaming with pain while the wrinkles were being ironed out; the pairs of lovers strolling arm in arm, the youths and girls jesting and quarreling as they bustled past; and the gay parties singing and shouting. But all this meant nothing to her, for nowhere could she find any sign of the one she desired to see.

"Come, let's step inside, where we will be by ourselves," said the Tyngall, taking Celia's arm and leading her back into the library. There they found themselves entirely alone; for the drowsy old man, interrupted in his slumbers, had arisen with the grumbling complaint that "Even in the libraries nowadap there's no privacy," and had stumbled off with a book under his arm.

"I do hope Harry will find his way back here soon!" exclaimed Celia, growing more alarmed moment by moment.

"Well, what if he doesn't?" inquired Spratt. "To tell the truth, young lady, that would suit me just as well. Yes, in fact, it would suit me a great deal better. It might have been 'very bothersome for us to have him around."

"For us?" echoed the girl, peering at the Tyngall with a sudden sharp suspicion, as she backed into a gallery of books marked, Medieval: Twenty-First Century. "Then was it you—was it you who—"

"No, no, not I, young lady!" interrupted the Tyngall, waving one hand in a gesture of denial. "By my mechanical boots! if I had schemed to get rid of him, I could have found an easier way!"

"BUT you will help me find him, won't you? Won't you?" begged the girl, looking up at him with eyes of clear blue innocent appeal.

"If fate has seen fit to remove him," asked the Tyngall, sententiously, while he leaned against a time-worn shelf of the twenty-third century neo-classical poets, "then why should I refuse the gifts it proffers? I believe I shall enjoy your company very much better without him."

"Oh, you—you are horrible!" accused the girl, retreating with tears in her eyes.

"Not at all, young lady. Merely human. Though I do live in the twenty-fifth century and am a Tyngall, I am able to appreciate one of nature's Works of art in the shape of a fair woman. You would not believe it, but my life has been a very lonely one."

"I don't see why that should interest me!"

"Come, come, you are not so short-sighted as you pretend. It ought to interest you very much. There are millions of women who would throw themselves down on their knees and offer up thanks at the prospect of having a Tyngall in marriage."

A Tyngall—in marriage!"

Celia had by this time backed to the extreme end of an alcove labeled: "History of Tranerica: Rise of the Tyngall Spratts." The dictator stood barring her exit—and escape seemed impossible.

"Oh, Harry!" she offered up her silent prayer. "Won't you come? Won't you come back soon?"

"My high position," continued her persecutor, in plaintive tones and with a wistful look in his eyes, "has made me meet too many women—and too few. They have swarmed about me, bent on matrimony; a Tyngall, as they well knew, would be a rare catch. You can't blame them of course; but, naturally, I didn't want to be caught. So I have remained a bachelor, though my heart cried out for the comforts of home and family. You are the first eligible lady I have ever met who didn't want to marry me. Consequently, I couldn't help falling in love. Let me congratulate you on your good fortune! My empire is at your feet! You shall be the first lady in Tranerica!"

Spratt ended with a flourish, and reached out his arms as if to enfold the object of his devotion. But she managed to take from the bookshelves a dusty tome on "Diplomatic Intrigues of the Twenty-Fourth Century," and imposed it between her and her suitor as a sort of shield.

"Mr. Spratt," she began to protest, in cool and haughty tones. "I—"

"Tyngall Spratt!" he corrected, scowling. "Always address me as Tyngall Spratt!"

"Tyngall Spratt," she amended, "I should be flattered, I suppose, at your attentions—"

"Not at all," he denied. "It is the just reward of your merits!"

"I should be flattered," she continued, "but you forget that I am already engaged."

"Pooh! What of it?" he scoffed. "I abrogate the engagement!"

"You also forget," she protested, angrily, "that I do not want it abrogated!"

"Your wishes in the matter, my dear lady," he returned, suavely, "are of no importance whatever. Remember, it is I who am accustomed to giving orders! When shall we place the date of the happy event?"

STILL secretly praying for Harry's return, Celia glanced along the aisles of books, desperately wondering if there were not some way to slip past the Tyngall.

"I'll admit," continued Spratt, solemnly, "it never occurred to me I was to marry a girl five hundred years old. But that doesn't matter, I suppose; you really don't look your age at all. One wouldn't think you were a day over nineteen."

"I'm only eighteen!" specified the girl, trying hard to keep back the tears that flooded to her eyes.

"Well, well, well! And you'll be the Tyngalless of Tranerica in less than a month! Let's see! It's now the first of January. January thirty-first was the day when my celebrated ancestor, Hannibal Fairchild Spratt the Great, made his historic march to power. What more natural than that this day be chosen to solemnize the tie which, we may reasonably hope, will perpetuate his line?"

Celia made a struggling effort to reply, but her sobs prevented.

"Now, now, now, dear lady, don't let your emotion overcome you," soothed the Tyngall. "It's natural that you should weep tears of joy. Shall we not leave now, and go up for a lover's chat in the Crystal Room of my castle?"

Still the girl continued to weep, but the Tyngall meditated in a pleasant vein, "I'll have a busy month ahead. Sending out the announcements to all Tranerica—it will keep the air-waves busy. Many women's hearts will be broken—but, alas! that can't be helped. I'm sure I couldn't find a worthier mate in all Tranerica, even if she does come from a barbarous century!"

Meanwhile, between her sobs, Celia mumbled brokenly, "Harry! Harry! Where are you, Harry?" And her heart was heavy within her, for still her lover did not return, and she felt as if by intuition that some evil had befallen him.

CHAPTER VI

Amid the Mazes

WHILE Celia was examining the volumes in the library, Harry had strolled to the entrance of the building; for books had very little interest for him. Once outside, he had wandered a few yards away, to observe some individuals who were pasting some scraps of tin foil in a large folder marked "Curio Collections." From the absorbed interest with which they were preserving and labeling various worthless fragments of colored paper, Harry judged them to be not quite right in the head; and he was smiling pleasantly to himself, and reflecting on the superiority of his own age, when he saw a rush of excited men bearing down upon him.

"What is it? A football charge?" he had barely time to ask himself, before he was caught by the mob and forced to rush along with them in order not to be trampled. Being a powerful man, he might soon have extricated himself; but curiosity had taken possession of him; and when the crowd halted with shouts and yells before a fenced enclosure containing a circular roadway, he halted with them and pressed forward to a position among the foremost. "The jigger races! The jigger races!" he heard them clamoring. "Hurrah! Hurrah! The jigger races!" And his neighbors began arguing loudly as to who would win, and bet hundreds of pebbles on the results.

A moment later dorms of little ears, each about as large as a motorcycle and running on gyroscopic wheels, were brought upon the track, which was perhaps two hundred yards around and ten feet wide. A single rider mounted each vehicle; and almost instantly, at the blast of a whistle, they began whirling about the track, some going to the right and some to the left, but all moving so rapidly that they seemed mere gray blurs that passed with a whistling as of a great wind.

"What is it all about?" wondered Harry; and decided that the object was to see how near the riders could come to one another without hitting, for they constantly seemed to avoid collisions by a hair's breadth. Not always, however! for in a minute there came a thunderous crash, accompanied by a burst of flame; and, after water had been applied from a hydrant above, the shapeless remnants of two machines and their riders were swept away by a mechanical attendant.

"Curses!" he heard a profane voice to his left. "By the blue lightnings, what luck! I've lost seventy pebbles!"

Even as these words were uttered, there came a second crash—which took two more machines and two more lives. But no one seemed disturbed, except certain pebble-losers, who grumbled loud and mournfully. The Jigger races; as Harry was afterwards told, were among the main sporting events of Tranerica—and although they cost a few million lives a year, no one begrudged the cost except a few stiff-backed humanitarians; for they served to kill time and to amuse the multitude.

But Harry, not being a native Tranerican, lost his taste for the sport after witnessing the third fatal collision. As hastily as he could, he forced his way out of the crowd, glad that he had been born in a more enlightened age.

IT was then that, with sudden sharpness, he remembered Celia and the Tyngall. "By Jove!" he told himself. "They'll think I've dropped through a black hole in the earth!" And he set out hastily to rejoin them—only to pause in bewilderment. His surroundings were unfamiliar! On all sides, as before, were lawns and shrubbery, crowded with people, and reaching to the extreme ends of the wide, interconnecting halls. But where was the library?

"Good Lord," he mumbled, half aloud, "I didn't watch my directions!" And then, tapping a passer-by on the shoulder, he inquired, "Beg pardon, friend, could you tell me the way to the library?"

The man looked up startled, and reguarded him with surprised watery eyes. "Why should you beg pardon?" he demanded. "You have done nothing to me. But you make a mistake in calling me friend. I have never seen you before."

"All right, all right," interrupted Harry, impatiently. "Cut out the gab, and tell me the way to the library."

"Library?" returned the man, looking puzzled. "Never heard of such a place."

"I mean, where they keep the books."

"Oh, the book-museum—as the boys like to call it! Yes, I do believe there's one somewhere around, but I couldn't tell you where. Haven't time for such things myself. I'm too busy collecting tin foil."

The man stared at Harry peculiarly, as one might at a harmless lunatic; then went ambling on his way.

"Gosh, but they have strange types in this century!" Harry reflected; and immediately accosted another passerby and repeated his question.

"Library? What do you want to get to the library for?" inquired the second stranger, a purple-faced individual with a cask-shaped abdomen. "There's nothing there to drink!" He likewise did not know the way; and this was the case with the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth and the seventh person that Harry stopped.

He now thought of asking a policeman; but as there were only mechanical guards, who were not educated to answer questions, he had to dismiss this idea. It then occurred to him to request to be taken to the Tyngall. But the individual to whom he put this suggestion—a grave-looking bent old man—appeared horrified and at a loss for a reply.

"Evidently, sir," he finally said, "you are not a Tranerican. Most likely you're from Paneura or Afasia or some other remote region. Even if I couldn't tell that from your tone of voice, I would be sure of it from your question. Every Tranerican knows that no one can ever be taken to the Tyngall without being summoned."

"But I was with the Tyngall, and lost him by mistake!"

A skeptical smile cross the old man's face. "I have lived too long, sir," he said, severely, "to be gulled by transparent falsehoods! The Tyngall does not associate with common people!"

With that the old man turned contemptuously on heel, and Harry had to resume "the weary task of questioning strangers. But all without results! No one knew the way to the library; no one would believe that Harry had actually seen the Tyngall. Many inquired his number; and, being told that he had none, they spit in disgust, or whirled about and refused further speech with him; for a man without number was a man without civil position, an outcast, a pariah, a person beneath contempt.

From gallery to gallery Harry wandered, a deep uneasiness gnawing away within him, while nowhere could he see any sign of the library, and gradually the suspicion overcame him that each step he took was bringing him further from his goal.

BEWILDERED and disheartened, he slumped down on a stone bench beside a fountain. By now, he realized, Celia must be in agonies at his absence; she would imagine that some grave mishap had befallen him. And he himself, as he thought of her alone in this strange century with no one to protect her but the Tyngall, felt half distracted. What would become of her should she remain at the mercy of that unbearable Spratt, who already. as Harry had angrily noticed, had cast ogling eyes at the girl?

But was there not still some way to find the library? Was there no guidebook to point out the direction? With this hope in mind, Harry leapt to his feet again, and hailed a passer-by, who proved most obliging, but stated that he had never heard of any guide-book. A second passer-by, however, offered more definite information—yes, indeed, there was a directory to all the Day Rooms. But where was it to be found? The man scratched his head, and then, after a moment, joyously gave the answer. The guidebook was in the library!

But since the informant, like the other Hivites, did not know the way to the library, Harry found himself no better off than ever.

Disconsolately he started on his way again, through wide galleries, branching and interconnecting with maze-like intricacy, and apparently endless in extent. After a time his attention was attracted to a crowd of men and women who stood, hundreds deep, before a little closed gateway, shouting and gesticulating, and furiously pushing and shoving to get to a front position. Above them, on the wall, a huge megaphone projected; and from it a bawling voice proclaimed monotonously, "One only will be required! One only will be required! Form your lines to the left!"

But far from forming lines, the men and women made only a writhing mass, squirming and squeezing, with bruised shins, bloodied noses and blackened eyes; while fresh recruits came rushing from all sides.

"What is it? A convention of lunatics?" Harry asked addressing a sensitive-looking tall young woman who stood by with a faintly amused expression on his clear, candid countenance.

"I see you're a foreigner," replied the young man, courteously "A native wouldn't have to ask questions. What you see here is a crowd of candidates applying for a job."

"Applying for a job? But I thought—"

"Thought that no one here has to work? Of course not! But most of us get so bored that when a job is open we fight for it like maniacs. There's no pay naturally; it's merely something to pass the time. You see, a few supervisors are needed to operate the mechanical workers by radio control; and also some inspectors to look at the factories now and then. Not enough to keep one man in a thousand occupied. That's why there's such a scramble, whenever a new job is open."

HARRY had started to walk away with the young man, whom he rather liked; while from behind him rang the yells, screams, groans and snarls of the rapidly growing throng of job seekers.

"What's your number, sir?" inquired his new acquaintance after Harry had vainly asked him the way to the library.

"I'm afraid I haven't any," Harry was forced to admit.

"No number?" A furtive expression came into the stranger's face; he pressed close to Harry, and whispered into his ears, "Neither have I!"

"Not for three years already!" he added, in barely audible tones, in respouse to Harry's puzzled glance. "You see, I'm a dangerous radical. I don't like the Tyngall system of government. I believe it leads to dry rot of the mind and spirit. There's nothing to do—nothing to strive for. It's my idea that most of the mechanical workers should be scrapped, and men put back on the jobs. That's what is called 'subversive doctrine.' On account of my youth, I was paroled on my first offense, with the loss of my number. The second offense would mean death."

"Your views sound pretty sensible to me," declared Harry. "Guess I'm a dangerous radical myself. But what do they call you, if you haven't any number?"

"My friends call me the Lightning Bolt. That's because I'm always so impetuous about everything."

"My friends call me Harry. Harry McNear."

"McNear? Harry McNear? What strange antique-sounding words! Well, Harry, since we're both numberless, maybe we can be friends!"

The hand of the Lightning Bolt shot out, and Harry took it warmly. And thus was sealed the bond of fellowship between the son of the twentieth century and the son of the twenty-fifth.

As the two wandered away together, a gong rang above them, and signs of excitement became evident among the men, women and children crowding the shaded walks and lawns of the Day Rooms. The reason for their agitation soon became visible in the shape of a company of mechanical workers, who strode in carrying great trays heaped with viands. Harry was reminded of the genii of the Arabian Nights, of whom he had read as a child; but there was something more familiar in the way the multitude swarmed forward, each person eager to be first in snatching the delicacies from the trays.

"What's the matter? Isn't there enough to go around?" inquired Harry, as he saw how avidly the people pushed and grabbed, not taking time to sit down, while swallowing the food, by great gulps.

"More than enough!" replied the Lightning Bolt. "It's simply an old habit—inherited from a time when, they say, many couldn't be sure if they would have butter for their bread. The same rush occurs three times every day."

Harry and his new-found friend waited until the multitude had been fed; then, approaching one of the mechanical workers, helped themselves to some vegetables, fruit and cakes from one of the trays.

BUT they had hardly finished their repast when they were startled by the sound of a siren. "That's the signal to leave the Day Rooms until tomorrow," declared the Lightning Bolt. "We'll have to go up to our compartments for eight or nine hours of sleep."

"But I haven't any compartment," stated Harry.

"No? Then there's been some oversight on the part of the mechanical room clerk. But don't let that disturb you. You can share my compartment, if you wish."

"I'd be ever so much obliged, if it wouldn't put you out."

"Not at all. I live in three rooms with another numberless chap—we've plenty of spare space. Having no number, you see," he added, in a mournful whisper, "naturally I couldn't hope to find any girl willing to marry me."

While the Lightning Bolt was speaking, Harry observed that several huge gates were swinging open, and that multitudes of little cushioned cars were waiting outside. Into these the people began pushing their way, trampling one another in their haste. But the Lightning Bolt, who seemed a most sensible person and did not at all live up to his name, gently took Hang's arm and led him in another direction. "Let's walk," he suggested. "It's simpler, and saves a lot of trouble."

The next moment, he and Harry were springing side by side up long spiral iron stairways.

CHAPTER VII

A Fresh Blow

"YES, we're pretty comfortably located here," remarked the Lightning Bolt, as he entered his compartment and turned the electric switch, which threw a flood of subdued radiance across three connecting rooms.

But Harry, as he surveyed those windowless chambers which exactly resembled the ones he had seen with the Tyngall, was surprised to notice that everything was as bare as-a house after the tenants have moved. "Where's the furniture?" he demanded.

"Why, just where it should be," replied the Lightning Bolt; and pressed a button on the wall. Instantly several steel chairs unfolded themselves from hidden niches, and rattled into position. At the same time, the Lightning Bolt pressed another button, and a table unfolded from the floor; while a third button caused a collapsible couch to clatter into place.

"You see, everything is arranged for convenience," continued the proprietor, as he turned a screw and a faint cool current of washed air began to blow over them. "We can't expect to have everything as comfortable as the Tyngall, but we have little to complain of in that line—no, not in that line!"

Even as he spoke, the door opened, admitting an alert little man with a long intellectual face and keen restless eyes.

"Oh, Ciph, I was waiting for you!" the Lightning Bolt greeted him. "I want you to meet my friend. He's one of us—hasn't any number. Call him simply Kar—no, Har, I think it is— Harry!"

"A strange name!" commented the newcomer, extending his hand. "But I'm always glad to meet a numberless man, Harry."

"This is my roommate and best friend," the Lightning Bolt introduced, clapping "Ciph" affectionately on the shoulder. "Since he has no number, we call him the Cipher."

"Cipher?" echoed Harry.

"Yes, you see, that indicates what they thought I amounted to," continued "Ciph," in a brisk voice. "After I lost my number, my old friends abandoned me; they called me the Cipher in ridicule—and the name clung."

"But how did you come to lose your number?"

"Oh, I happened to get careless one day. I was having an argument with a friend, and the question arose whether it was possible to conceive of a wiser and more humane system of life than that of the Hives. I answered with a rash Yes!; for sometimes I got tired of seeing mechanical workers all around me and would have lived to do things for myself. Very incautiously I raised my voice, and was overheard, and reported. My statements being construed as a criticism of the government, I lost my number. Luckily, I was able to bring influence to bear with the judge—which accounts for the fact that I'm still alive."

"Criticism of the government is treason," explained the Lightning Bolt. "Usually the suspect is executed on general principle. Hence the government is not very much criticized."

UNTIL, late in the night (or, rather, the period that passed for night, since all time divisions in the Hives were arbitrary), Harry sat up talking with his new friends, whom he came to like more and more as the hours wore on. He learned that both were secretly opposed to the Tyngall and his administration; and that thousands of others, likewise, were discontented, but did not dare to speak their minds; in fact, the subject of revolution had often been broached, although nothing in that line had been attempted for many decades. This knowledge, however, put a daring idea into Harry's mind—an idea on which he was to act far sooner than he could have anticipated.

The following morning, after spending a few hours tossing on the "spare couch" which his new friends had provided, Harry bathed in a fountain of warm water and was shaved by a mechanical valet; then accompanied the Cipher and the Lightning Bolt to the Day Rooms, where mechanical waiters were passing back and forth with the breakfast trays. "Do you know where the library is?" Harry asked the Cipher as a matter of course when they had eaten; and was astonished to receive a reply in the affirmative.

"Yes, I often go there," said the Cipher. "People think it dreadfully old-fashioned of me."

"Show me the way!" demanded Harry, although it was hardly to be expected that, after nearly twenty-four hours, Celia could be found there. Yet to the library they hastened—only to find the building empty.

"Don't see how on earth I'm going to trace her now," Harry lamented, feeling as if the whole world were collapsing about his shoulders; for he had cherished the hope that at the library he would find, if not Celia herself, at least some message from her.

"No, I don't see how you're going to trace her," coincided the Lightning Bolt, who had heard Harry's whole story. "It would be as much as your life is forth to try to communicate with the Tyngall."

"But doubtless the Tyngall will take good care of her," contributed the Ciplier, consolingly.

"Yes, too damned good care!" muttered Harry.

At this point their discussion was interrupted by a thunderous voice, which broke out with startling suddenness: "Attention! Attention! Attention, all Hivites!"

Hastening out of the library, they found that the voice issued from a series of megaphones high up on the wall.

"The radio!" mumbled the Lightning Bolt, a little awed. "It's only on state occasion that the radio speaks like this!"

"Attention! Attention! Attention, all Hivites!" repeated the megaphones. And people on all sides, children and adults alike, halted in their chattering and their games, and stood staring with wide-open mouths and gaping eyes.

There ensued a second of silence that seemed almost unnatural; then once more that booming voice sounded from the megaphones:

"Attention! Attention! All Hivites, attention! A momentous announcement, and one of great good omen, is to be made by His Preeminent Highness, Tyngall Hannibal Fairchild Spratt the Seventh!"

"Tyngall! Oh, Tyngall! Hail Tyngall!" cried the people, in a confused chorus; while they flung themselves down and kissed the earth in token of respect to their ruler.

NOW from the megaphones there poured a different voice—and one which Harry thought he recognized:

"My people, I know that you will rejoice with me on this day of great good fortune. I have tidings which will, I am sure, bring murmurs of happiness to the lips of you all. For a long while, as you know, my fate has been a lonely one. My well wishers have long urged me to unite my lot to that of some fair lady, and so give the country a Tyngalless, as well as the promise of an heir to the name and fortunes of the illustrious family of Spratt. But until the present moment, unable to choose among the countless superb daughters of Tranerica, I have lived in dismal bachelorhood. Now, however, I have decided to change to a more blessed lot. My nuptials will be celebrated on the thirty-first of this month."

The megaphone grew silent; and the people also remained dumb for a moment. Then, as the full meaning of their leader's announcement forced itself upon them, pandemonium broke forth. There were cheers, yells and shouts: "Tyngall! Oh, Tyngall! Hail Tyngall! Hail Tyngall!" Tears glistened in many eyes; numbers of women burst out weeping. And many men leapt about and damned with jubilant cries.

In Harry's heart, also, there was great rejoicing. "Thank God!" he reflected. "Now that the old devil's engaged, maybe he'll let Celia alone!"

"The number of the bride," the voice from the megaphones rumbled on, while every one once more stood at attention, "may not be revealed just yet. But she comes, needless to say, of high and distinguished lineage; her pedigree has been traced back more than five centuries. In order, however, that my people may early come to know and love the face of their future Tyngalless, I will order it to appear on the television screen."

It was but the work of a minute for some mechanical workers to enter and erect television screens under the megaphones. And it was less than five minutes before a fair womanly face, larger than life-sized, appeared upon the screens with photographic distinctness, and in its natural colors.

As he gazed up at those features of the innocent pansy-like grace and flowing golden hair, Harry gasped, groaned, clenched his fists, and mumbled something that sounded like an oath. His day had turned black and blank. The face on the screen was that of his betrothed!

CHAPTER VIII

Stroke Follows Stroke

"NOW, my dear young lady, isn't it just about time you stopped these foolish objections? It's all right, I'm told, for engaged people to quarrel once in a while, but you've done nothing but quarrel. You should have a better sense of the dignity of your position!"

Up and down the glittering length of the Crystal Room the Tyngall stalked, his hands clasped behind his back, his brows compressed and scowling; while at one end of the hall a golden-haired figure sat in a hunched position, her face buried in her hands, her sobs coming forth in half-suppressed spasms.

"These tears, dear lady, are getting very tiresome," continued the dictator.

"I've always heard the female sex required much humoring, and, by the great name of Spratt! haven't I done everything possible to humor you? However, my patience has its limits. There are not many persons who would risk exhausting the temper of a Tyngall!"

"But I don't want to marry you! I never said I wanted to!" came a pitiful voice from a corner of the hall.

"Nonsense, dear lady! A silly prejudice! Who wouldn't want to marry a Tyngall? You don't mean to say you'd rather have that long-faced, carrot-haired, ox-shouldered brute that accompanied you here from the twentieth century?"

"He's not an ox-shouldered brute!" denied the girl, rising with fists clenched. "And you've taken him away from me! You've hidden him! I don't know what you've done to him! I went him back! I want Harry back! I want him back, do you understand?"

With one foot she stamped vigorously on the floor, while she stood facing him combatively, with flaming eyes.

"Who would ever have thought that such a meek-looking violet would show such spirit?" meditated the Tyngall. "Doubtless such wild and primitive passions were common in the twentieth century. But there is no use complaining, dear lady. The date of the marriage has been set. The whole country is awaiting the event. Harry is a little incident you will have to forget."

"Never!" denied Celia, again stamping on the floor.

"Never is a word you should not use carelessly, my lady. Sometimes, years hence, when you sit on your high throne, the mother of Tyngalls and Tyngallesses, you will think back on these events, and smile at your youthful folly in wanting to wed a plebeian. Meanwhile, in order to help you forget, I forbid you ever to mention this red-haired beast—this Harry, as you call him."

"And what if I refuse?" demanded the girl, glaring at him out of her inflamed tear-wet eyes.

"Refuse?" Spratt took a stride across the room, paused to light a cigarette brought to him by a moving hand operating in a socket along the wall, and then turned coolly back to his intended bride. "Refuse? No one ever refuses the Tyngall. It just is not done, dear lady. There are—well, there are methods at my disposal."

"You can't threaten me!" she challenged, standing up to him defiantly.

"THREATEN you?" returned the Tyngall, between puffs at his cigarette. "That's the last thing I would think of. This man of yours—this Harry—would be the one to meet the bill. As I've told you, it would be very hard to find him, since he has no number—still, if I ordered it, we might locate him. In that case, he would be sorry he had come to the twenty-fifty century!"

Celia's face had suddenly gone white. "But you wouldn't!" she pleaded, "you, wouldn't take it out on Harry—"

"Why not, dear lady? Naturally, I should dislike extreme measures. But if you cannot drive Harry out of your mind, I shall have no choice but to put him out of the way. Very regretfully, of course—but very decisively!"

Celia gasped; then, sobbing once more, hurriedly turned aside.

The Tyngall stood looking after her with a vexed expression. "An accursed nuisance, these women!" he muttered to himself. "But you've got to show them who's master!"

After another puff at his cigarette, he pressed a wall-button, which sent two mechanical maids clattering to the service of his bethrothed. Then contemplatively he crossed the room, and stood looking out of the immense window down toward the Hudson and the black Titanic masses of the Hives. "Somewhere over there," he ruminated, "is this nuisance of a Harry. But he will not be there much longer, unless his friend knows how to forget very quickly!

* * *

The Tyngall would have been even more displeased at the thought of Harry could he have witnessed certain events that had occurred in the Hives an hour or two before.

After receiving the news of Spratt's engagement and seeing the face on the screen, Harry had wandered away like one in a fog. His head was reeling; his fists were clenched; rage and terror fought for mastery of his mind. So suddenly, so unexpectedly had the blow descended that at first he could not grasp its full import; he could only realize, with a blazing indignation, that Celia had been snatched from him; and bewilderment and a sense of baffled impotence mingled with a bitter desire for revenge.

In the confusion of those first moments, he scarcely noticed where he went or what words came from his lips. "Damn the Tyngall!" he muttered, quite audibly, to give some outlet to his inflamed feelings. "Damn the Tyngall! Blast his soul to hell! I'll get the dog for this! I'll get him, I'll get him yet!"

He was hardly aware how crowds gathered about him, staring with wide, unbelieving eyes as he uttered these profanities; nor did he take any note of his friends as they hastened to his side and muttered warnings into his ears.

"For your life's sake," chided the Ciplier, "have you gone out of your head? Hold your tongue, hold your tongue!"

"Silent, if you value your breath!" cautioned the Lightning Bolt. "What has come over you, that you want to commit suicide?"

"May the Tyngall and his kind be damned forever!" swore Harry, still too angry to heed any warnings. "The cursed swine! to lay his dirty paws on my girl—"

Most of the crowd looked grave and shocked at this impiety; one or two gasped with horror. But on several faces smiles appeared, and from somewhere in the rear a titter was heard.

"Hurry! Let's get out of here while there's still time!" the Lightning Bolt urged, plucking at Harry's sleeve, in the attempt to draw him away from the throng.

But even as he spoke, there came a sound that made him stop short, with a groan of despair.

From the opposite end of the room, a bell began to dang with heavy metallic peals as of a fire alarm. Sharp, insistent, and continuous, the niose was such as to drown out all conversations. The mob, as if petrified, stood glued in their tracks, their eyes gleaming with excitement, their agitated murmurs inaudible amid the din.

After about a moment, the bell became silent; but even while the echoes still vibrated ominously, a distant clanking was heard, rapidly growing louder.

"By the crown of the Tyngall!" exclaimed the Cipher, mournfully. "Some one has rung the treason alarm!"

"But can't we still get away?" cried the Lightning Bolt, glancing about him like a caged animal.

But the multitude hedged them around with hostile hands uplifted and malevolent eyes.

It was only a minute before the clanking had grown to ear-splitting proportions; and half a dozen mechanical grimaces and screeches and yells gether furiously as if thus to make themselves appear more terrible, shouldered their way forward. Guided unerringly by remote radio control, they formed themselves in a circle about Harry and his two friends, and then began marching away with the three prisoners in their midst, to the accompaniment of a loud thump, thump, thump that sounded a little like the tramping of an army. Behind them, with comical grimaces and screeches and wells of derision, the rabble followed; and stones and hits of earth came showering in their direction.

At the further end of the hall, the mechanical guards halted. One of them reached down, and opened a circular panel on the wall, revealing a slanting tube about a yard across; while a second drew forth three steel shells, each a little over six feet long, and just wide enough to fit into the tube like a key into a lock. They then thrust each of the captives into one of the containers; after which there came a rattling sound, and the lid slipped down.

Forced irresistibly into the little steel box by the iron hands of the guard, Harry felt that his last moment had come. As the cover rattled to a close above him, and he found himself in utter darkness in a space so small that he could move but a few inches in any direction, his heart leapt with terror at the thought that he was being buried alive; and he called out with cries that, he well knew, no one could hear, and beat against the steel walls until his fists bled.

Then suddenly he was aware that he was in motion. There came a swishing, hissing sound from outside; his head tipped downward, and only his heavy mat of hair saved him from serious injury as he banged against the front wall; he rolled from side to side, and could not control his movements.

IN that bewildered, Terrified moment, he had given up all hope. It was almost with a shock, therefore, that he felt his steel container grating to a halt, saw the cover slide open above him and was greeted by the welcome glow of electric lamps.

Still feeling stunned, he arose a little awkwardly, and found himself in a fair-sized room lined with intricate-looking machines. Just in front of him his two friends were also emerging from steel shells. Both looked dazed, and the Lightning Bolt was nursing bruises on his shins and arms; but both, like Harry, seemed glad to find themselves still alive.

"It really was nothing," declared the Cipher with a forced smile on his lean sagacious face. "I've often heard how terrible it was to ride in the pneumatic tubes. but after all. it's worth while to have had the experience."

"You see, the tubes are ordinarily used for freight," explained the Lightning Bolt. "But sometimes, as you have observed, they're employed for vicious criminals. That's considered part of the punishment."

"Wonder what they're going to do with us now," mused Harry, as he glanced curiously at the various machines that lined the room-machines each about ten feet high, with huge and complicated dials, a multitude of connecting wires, and long ribbed steel projections and rubber tubes that wound into the air like the feelers of an octopus.

"Why, there's no doubt what is to be done next," stated the Cipher, in a matter-of-fact manner. "We're to be tried."

"Tried?"

"Certainly. By the Mechanical Judge."

One of the iron workers had come clattering into the room as these words were spoken; and, with swift movements, seized the left wrist of each prisoner, and attached it to one of the projecting rubber tubes. Instantly little wheels moved on the machines," a low growling was heard from within them, and the dials began slowly turning.

"What do you mean by a Mechanical Judge?" demanded Harry; while the iron worker took his right hand and made him hold a knob connecting with an electric wire.

"A Mechanical Judge," the Cipher declared, "represents the height of judicial advance. Now that all decisions are machine-made, we can be sure they will be uniform quality. We can also be sure they will be swift, efficient, and positive. Besides, the Mechanical judge cannot be bribed."

"No, but they say he can be fixed," contributed the Lightning Bolt.

"But how can you get decisions by machine?" asked Harry, with a skeptical smile. "The thing is impossible."

"Far from it!" denied the Cipher. "The principle is really very simple. Why, didn't they have lie detectors long ago, so far back, I believe. as the twentieth century? We're merely enlarged upon the same idea. Everything that happens to a man, you see, leaves its reaction in his nervous system, and in his blood stream. Each incident, each thought arouses a faint electric current—very weak, it is true; yet a sufficiently powerful machine, with strong amplifiers, can register it and interpret it by its wave-length. So, if a man has treasonous ideas—"

HE was interrupted by a growl from one of the machines—a growl which sounded exactly like that of a bulldog.

"The Mechanical Judge is getting ready for his decision," remarked the Lightning Bolt, his hands fluttering with excitement.

"What! Is that the Mechanical Judge?" cried Harry, pointing in astonishment to the machines.

"Of course! Didn't you even know you were being tried?"

"No, I didn't realize it," admitted Harry, with a rueful glance at the rubber tube attached to his left hand, and the wire connecting with his right. And then, looking up with an attempt to be cheerful, he smiled, bowed toward one of the machines, and continued, facetiously, "I trust Your Honor will be good to us!"

A loud grumbling from inside the machine was the immediate response.

"Sure the Mechanical Judge never makes mistakes?" Harry went on, a little nervously. "I'd hate to see the wrong decision."

"Have no fear," returned the Cipher, mournfully. "They say his record of convictions is nearly one hundred per cent."

The next instant there came a sudden snapping sound from inside the largest machine, and a red hand shot up, along with some crimson notations.

"Prisoner Number 1," read an arrow pointing in the Cipher's direction, "ZX 1." . . . "Prisoner Number 2," said an arrow aimed at the Lightning Bolt, "ZX 2." . . . "Prisoner Number 3," announced an arrow that indicated Harry, "ZX 3."

"That's the decision, of course," stated the Cipher, extricating himself from the rubber tube and wire. "There's a table at the end of the room to interpret the code."

All three hastily made their way across the room, and could hardly keep from groaning as they read: "ZX 1, Guilty of treason in the third degree. Confinement for fifty years. . . . ZX 2. Guilt of treason in the second degree-Confinement for life. . . . ZX 3. Guilty of treason in the first degree. Execution in thirty days."

CHAPTER IX

The Conspiracy

ALMOST before the three unfortunates had had time to grasp the meaning of the sentence pronounced upon them, they were herded together by a corps of mechanical guards and forced once more into pneumatic tubes. After another bewildering flight through the darkness, they emerged in a long corridor marked in huge black letters: "LOWER CLASS RESIDENTIAL QUARTERS." Not until later did Harry learn that by "lower class" the sign really meant "prison population;" for the meaning of the terms had altered in the course of the centuries, until the two were regarded as synonymous.

Feeling like one who has been dealt a stunning blow on the head, Harry allowed his mechanized jailors to prod him through several steel-barred gates and one or two winding iron hallways; while the Lightning Bolt and the Cipher accompanied him with drooping features and desolate eyes. Finally they reached a series of large connecting electrically lighted galleries or caverns, reminding Harry of the Day Rooms, except that there were no lawns or trees, but only concrete floors and patches of gravel and sand, overarched by a high vaulted ceiling supported by steed columns. In these spacious reaches, thousands of men and women were gathered, engaged in various tasks and pastimes which seemed to Harry to contrast strangely with the occupations of the free citizens.

It tended to take his mind off his own troubles to watch these prisoners, who did not at all meet his preconceived conception of "jailbirds." Here a man, bespectacled and patriarchal-looking, would be studiously reading from a hoary old tome; here a young scientist would, be poring through a microscope, and making notes and drawings; here a painter would be standing with his palette and brushes, or a sculptor with a half finished bust; while some of the inmates were filling immense volumes with pencilled notations, others were practicing at musical instruments, and still others were gathered into little knots, soberly talking.

From the finely developed faces, the massive brows, the keen eyes of the prisoners, Harry was at once aware that these were persons of a different type from those in the Day Rooms. It was evident at a glance that they were the most talented, the most intellectual representatives of the twenty-fifth century!

"Is this really the prison?" asked Harry, in wonder. "Isn't there some mistake—"

"No, there is no mistake," returned the Cipher, grimly. "This is the prison, all right."

"Or, as they prefer to call it, the lower class residential quarters," amended the Lightning Bolt.

"It might be all right for a few days," declared the Cipher, with a sigh, "but as a resort for the next fifty years, I don't exactly fancy it."

"Think of me!" pointed out the Lightning Bolt, enviously. "I didn't get off with a mere fifty years! They gave me life!"

"I have only thirty days!" groaned Harry, thinking of his impending doom.

"Yes, lucky fellow! Your misery will soon be over!" returned the Lightning Bolt, in a congratulatory manner.

"I DON'T know what he's done to deserve such preference!" mourned the Cipher. "A swift and painless end—electrocution by one quickly delivered radio bolt—and then nothing more to worry about for all eternity! Too bad, too bad not every one can have such good fortune!"

"What do you mean?" demanded Harry, more than a little irritated. "Do you think I came from the twentieth century just in order to be electrocuted?"

"There are worse fates than that! Yes, there are worse fates than that!" sighed the Cipher. "Think of my fifty years!"

"Think of my lifetime!" moaned the Lightning Bolt. "I'm only twenty- eight. And modern science has made such frightful progress I may live to be a hundred!"

"Well, I'm going to live to be a hundred, too—if I can find any way!" asserted Harry. "Do you think I'll lie down and let myself be executed just because a machine condemned me? Not on your life! I've got thirty days yet—and a lot can happen in thirty days!"

"Not in the prison!" lamented the Cipher.

"You mean, the lower residential quarters," corrected the Lightning Bolt.

"What I'm wondering," reflected Harry, as he looked out across the wide hall at his multitudes of fellow victims. "what I'm wondering is if some of us down here can't get together, and bolt for freedom."

"It's no use," mumbled the Cipher. "There's nowhere to bolt to."

"Still, aren't most of us pretty much in the same boat?" Harry went on, disregarding this remark.

"Same what? Same boat?" came in one voice from his two friends, to whom this twentieth century idiom was unfamiliar.

"I mean, we've all got nothing to lose but our chains. Any of these other folks here sentenced to death?"

"About half, I should say," estimated the Cipher.

"And the other half are in for twenty years or over," added the Lightning Bolt. "The mechanical judge isn't geared to give short sentences."

"Good!" pronounced Harry, with enthusiasm, as by degrees a daring plan took shape in his mind. "Then every one here is our natural ally. What if we were to rise up, all of us, and strike out—"

"By the eyes of the Tyngall, not so loud!" interrupted the Lightning Bolt, as he clutched warningly at Harry's arm.

"No—if you don't want to die by torture, keep your voice down!" coincided the Cipher.

"Don't you realize, the air tappers may get you?" the Lightning Bolt demanded. "By their secret radio waves, they can listen in on conversations anywhere. It's getting so nowadays that nothing is safe that's spoken above a whisper."

HARRY glanced about him anxiously, as if to make sure that no one was within hearing distance.

"It doesn't matter where you are," declared the Cipher. "They can hear you as well a mile away as a foot."

"Anyhow, you've got to listen to me!" insisted Harry, in undertones. And he led his unwilling friends to a little hidden niche between two great steel pillars, and prepared to unfold his scheme.

"I've got just thirty days to work in," he declared, hastily, but careful to keep his voice to a whisper. "In that time the Tyngall has to be thrown down, like the rat that he is, and we've got to make ourselves the lords of Tranerica."

"There have been others with the same idea, my boy," nodded the Cipher, drearily. "In most cases a well-aimed radio bolt has ended their dreams."

"Why should it be a dream?" argued Harry. "Don't you realize how vulnerable the Tyndall is? Why, he depends for his power exclusively upon the mechanical guards and workers!"

"Very true—and each mechanical worker has from a thousand to ten thousand man-power," sighed the Lightning Bolt.

"Yes, but they are all controlled by small groups of men, are they not?" Harry went on hastily, incautiously lifting his voice. so that his companions had to warn him again. "The real rulers of Tranerica are the men that guide the mechanical workers. These are but few in number. If they were captured, or made to obey our will, we could move the mechanical workers as we wished—and it would be we that ruled Tranerica."

"Yes, that's so in a way," admitted the Cipher, looking thoughtful. "The only question is how to capture the radio operators."

"It reminds me of the ancient fable of the mice and the cat," contributed the Lightning Bolt, with a mournful grimace. "We're all nicely agreed to bell Mr. Cat—the only question is, which hero is to attempt it?"

"I don't call myself a hero, but I'll attempt it! " averred Harry. "That is," he added, more soberly, "if I get cooperation. One man alone can't move a mountain."

"Well, I'm with you," swore the Cipher. "At the worst, I may be rewarded by speedy execution."

"Me too!" concurred the Lightning Bolt. "I'm a desperate man, with seventy or seventy-five years looming ahead of me. I don't think you have the shadow of a chance to win out, but if I'm lucky I may be caught and electrocuted."

"No reason you should be caught!" denied Harry. And then, drawing his friends more deeply into the niche between the two columns, he glanced apprehensively in all directions; and resumed the discussion in a whisper.

For several hours the conference continued, while the three conspirators planned, weighed and debated. Gradually a more determined light came into the eyes of Harry's two friends, as though they had been infected by his enthusiasm; gradually Harry himself began to show the signs of taint triumph; while his excitement, suppressed with difficulty, slowly mounted, and there was a fierceness in his manner, as of a would-be conqueror.

The discussion was interrupted by the passage of several mechanical waiters bearing food—scanty and flavorless victuals, as compared with the abundant repasts enjoyed in the Day Rooms, but with the compensating feature that there was no wild rush to be the first served. Somewhat later, the lights were put out, and the prisoners were compelled to spend eight hours of darkness stretched out on the sand or gravel or on couches of straw; for the theory of the law was that, not been fully human, they were not entitled to humane accommodations. But all during the meal period and a good part of the time allotted for slumber, the whispered conversation of the three plotters continued; and by the following day their plans had begun to take shape.

DURING the next week or two, many furtive discussions were held in the Lower Residential Quarters. The Lightning Bolt, the Cipher and Harry were seen to pass continually from place to place, accosting likely-looking fellow prisoners; and the discussions they held always took place in some concealed spot and were conducted in whispers. Many of those whom they interviewed, it was later learned, were converted into apostles for the Cause, and began preaching in undertones to their friends and acquaintances, large numbers of whom in turn became ardent advocates of the insurrectionary movement. "Since we are condemned to death, or worse than death," was their argument, "why not give our lives fighting?" But they were cautious to keep all such sentiments scrupulously hushed, and not to gather in large or suspicious-looking crowds. In every heart there was the dread that some mishap or blunder, some unguarded or treasonous remark, would betray the plans and condemn the conspirators to the torture chambers; in every heart was the wild hope that the seemingly impossible would happen, and the first successful revolt in centuries would occur.

All the prisoners meanwhile weighed and reviewed every detail of the design, examining and re-examining it so as to avoid every pitfall. And all looked forward in apprehension and fierce longing to the thirtieth of January, the day before the Tyngall's marriage, when three numberless men were to lead their thousands in a desperate gamble with fate.

CHAPTER X

At the Eleventh Hour

FORTY-EIGHT hours before the time of his prospective execution, Harry was carried by one of his mechanized jailors into a large, bare, black-walled room. This was the "Death Chamber"; and here it was that scores of wretches, men and women of all ages, were miserably moping in anticipation of the bolt that was to end their existence. Some of these poor doomed persons cowered in corners, muttering to themselves; others ranged restlessly back and forth; still others stood apart and prayed; but in the frightened glances and hopeless looks of them all was written the mark of the sentence that hovered above them.

Meanwhile, in the interest of what was known as "humanized killing," the final rites were being administered by the Mechanical Preacher. This was an iron machine built to look exactly like a man. It was dressed in a long flowing black robe, and wore a white collar, closed in front; it was equipped with a mask which, unless one approached very close, might have been mistaken for a human face; and it moved its hands with measured gesticulations and bent and unbent its creaking frame in a manner that appeared most life-like. Even its voice, which came forth in a melancholy drone, seemed natural and quite human, and a stranger might never have known that there was a phonograph cleverly concealed where its heart should have been, and that this reeled off any number of records in succession owing to an automatic electric adjustment.

"Repent, and receive absolution for your sins," the Mechanical Preacher was saying. "Repent, and receive absolution! It is a long road that leads to spiritual redemption, but the punishment which is being meted out to you, my brothers, is for your own good no less than that of the State—"

On and on in this vein the Mechanical Preacher went never-endingly. At first Harry found the long-winded monotonous sentences quite annoying, but after a time he did not even notice them; and he was told that this was the way with most of the prisoners. In fact, some of them spoke of the Preacher in the most favorable terms; for he served as an anodyne for pain, and helped to put them to sleep.

For several hours after his confinement, Harry walked restlessly back and forth along the hundred-foot length of the Death Chamber. His eyes were tense and excited; they were filled with an eagerness, one might say an anticipation hardly to be expected in one who was so soon to die. He scarcely observed his fellow prisoners; but almost constantly his gaze was on the great clock that dangled from the ceiling, as if he were anxious for his few remaining moments on earth to be ticked away.

At last a gong sounded with a hollow note, like the stroke of doom; and a voice through a megaphone proclaimed: Visitin' Hour! For the next sixty minutes, the inmates of the Death Chamber may receive their friends, in order to exchange final farewells!"

NO sooner had these words been spoken than the doors were thrown open, and hundreds of men, women and children came crowding in, crying, shouting, weeping and wailing as they threw themselves around the necks of relatives and friends and clung to them with despairing arms. Amid the throng of newcomers, Harry soon made out two familiar faces; and motioning to the Cipher and the Lightning Bolt, he led them to a corner of the room, where they could talk in relative seclusion. But, in any case, the commotion about them was so loud and continuous that there was little danger that they would be overheard.

"Well?" Harry demanded, as much with a movement of his lips as in actual words. "Everything ready?"

"All prepared to cut the wires?"

"We have three men secretly stationed with steel-cutting shears."

"How about the flash-lights?"

"A thousand of them are hidden. Four of our comrades almost gave their lives to steal them from the warehouse when the mechanical guards were off duty."

"Good! And everybody is prepared to strike?"

"Everybody. We but await your orders."

"Then let the time be the second hour before the night sleep! Now go- so as not to arouse suspicion!"

"Good-bye—and may fortune bless our enterprise!"

"May the helper of all good causes be with you, Harry! The risk is a desperate one—but we may win out!"

Before leaving, Harry's two friends both flung their arms about his shoulders, and burst into bitter lamentations—so as not to attract attention by behaving differently from the other visitors. Then, without so much as a final nod, they turned and were lost amid the multitude. But Harry, smiling, brushed back his heavy locks proudly, almost exultantly, and stood aloof in one corner, gazing out at the crowd with a forceful expectant light in his eyes.

It was several hours later when pandemonium broke forth outside the Death Chamber, in the heart of the Lower Class Residential Quarter. The commotion began with the suddenness of a dynamite discharge; all at once there arose a clamor of shouts, yells, screams, hoots and howls, accompanied by a noise of thumping, banging, and hammering. The occupants of the Death Chamber, rushing to the barred windows, were astonished to see hundreds of their fellow prisoners marching in rough military formation, equipped with sticks, rods and poles, which they waved in air or knocked against the ground or stone columns, while crying out at the tops of their voices. But most of all the spectators were amazed to hear that sacrilegious call dinning through the air, "Down with the Tyngall! Away with the Tyngall! A new government! A new government for Tranerica!"

Hardly had the tumult begun than another and more ominous sound was heard in the distance. There came a booming as of thunder, accompanied by a rapid vibrant rattling, as of a nest of machine-guns in action; and a company of mechanical guards, each ten feet tall, came roaring forward with the speed of an express train. The watchers at the barred windows gasped; in another moment, they thought, the machines would scatter the rebels like toy soldiers. Some averted their eyes, not wishing to see the red chaos of bodies trampled and torn; others cried out in apprehension, expecting in an instant to hear the yells of the mangled and dying. But just before the crisis, when the iron guards were within hand's grasp of the rioters, an unforeseen event intruded.

WITH electrifying suddenness, the lights went out. Not so much as a flicker of warning did they give; they flashed from existence to non-existence with the speed of a fading meteor. Blackness covered the prison chambers —blackness absolute and unbroken, except where here and there a firefly flicker, shot from the eye of a flashlight, wavered uncannily through the gloom. Yet from the darkness there strangely, fantastically rang a sound of merriment—a burst of laughter, wild and triumphant, that rose in mocking peals and reverberations, like the glee of a victorious multitude.

As he stood clutching the bars of the Death Chamber, Harry caught the contagion of that cry; and from his lips too there came something that sounded like a laugh; while his eyes, as they gazed out into the blankness, exuded tears of thankfulness. The first step in the plot, long and carefully planned, had been accomplished! The wires that supplied the prison with light had been out, and consequently the mechanical guards had been rendered useless; for they could be controlled only when seen through television reflectors by the remote operators! They were now standing stiff and motionless, more inanimate hulks of metal which no man need fear so long as they remained in darkness!

While he secretly exulted in this first success, Harry observed that the second step was already being attempted. He saw a number of small flickering lights rapidly approaching, and knew that each was a flashlight carried by a small party of men. Then he heard a furious hammering and banging, and was aware that the bars of the Death Chamber, which had not been built in the expectation of any concerted assault, were giving way beneath the pummeling of the mob outside. It was but a minute before iron truncheons had hammered down the doors and windows; and Harry and his fellow convicts, shouting with joy, were received into the arms of their rescuers, who burst in through the torch-lit blackness like a conquering army.

Then away they all rushed into the wider chambers of the general prison, where mysterious movements and bustlings were to be heard from amid the darkness and shadowy figures flitted back and forth like shades. And now they turned to meet a new menace; a glare as of a cluster of locomotive headlights appeared suddenly out of the distance, and moved forward with dizzying speed, accompanied by the dank, clank, dank that told of the invasion of a new company of mechanical soldiers.

Side by side with the iron giants, two or three men were to be seen moving in agile little cars, guiding the troops as they thundered forward. Was the revolution to be nipped in the very bud? But no! just when the advancing militia seemed about to crush the revolters under heel, the glare of the headlights grew dim and vanished; and the men in the little cars glided over to the rebels and mingled with them. The insurrectionsts, acting through one of their number whose term in prison had expired a few days before, had not neglected the precaution of enlisting the support of the flesh-and-blood workers that controlled the mechanical emergency troops!

NOW began the most precarious step of all. "This way, boys," whispered Harry, as some one passed him a flashlight; and, with the Cipher and the Lightning Bolt at his heels, followed by swarms of other supporters, he began moving through the dimness to the extreme end of the prison, where a vent three feet across marked the termination of one of the pneumatic tubes. Since the iron gates were locked and were much too stout to be taken by storm, the pneumatic tubes represented the only means of egress from the Lower Class Residential Quarters. To attempt to escape through these long dark passageways would be hazardous in the extreme; there was no way of saying where the men would emerge, or whether or not they might not all be bottled up in a trap. But since no other means was possible, the risk was one that must be faced.

"Keep within touching distance of each other—and be sure your flashlights are ready," directed Harry. And then, without hesitation, he drew down the iron lid of the pneumatic tube, and crept into the darkness.

CHAPTER XI

The Assault on Hive W

IT seemed to Harry that he crawled for miles through that close, hot, lightless tube, his only illumination the feeble rays of the flashlight. At times the tunnel dipped sharply and he was on the point of slipping and breaking his legs in the abyss; at other times it rose as sharply, and he could pull himself up only by the utmost straining. Behind him he could hear his followers panting, one close after another, sometimes mumbling beneath their breath, sometimes growling oaths and curses; and he too felt like bursting into profanity as he moved slowly through the endless labyrinth. What if he should never find his way out at all? What if he and all his supporters should perish in these mine-like depths? Or what if one of the steel freight-carriers should come shooting through the tube and annihilate them all? He well knew that the electrical connections had been cut, making this impossible; yet his mind swam, and it was not possibilities alone that alarmed him.

But at all times one thought was uppermost: the thought of the Tyngall, and of Celia; of Celia bright and smiling as when he had left her, and of Celia struggling in the dictator's arms. And it was the latter vision which, standing forth lurid and feverish in his oppressed imagination, dominated and drove him on like a goad, until he would sooner have perished in misery than have thought of turning back. Yet was he not already too late to save Celia?

It may have been after hours of groping through the tube that the flashlight at length showed a solid barrier ahead, and Harry knew that they were coming to a fresh phase of their adventure. To slip off the lid of the tube and emerge would now be a simple matter—but where would they emerge? Would they thrust themselves straight into the waiting arms of their enemies?

For a moment Harry hesitated, while he could hear his followers heavily breathing behind him. Then, with painstaking caution, he drew back the lid of the tube a fraction of an inch. A circular slit of dim light became visible; and Harry, putting one eye to the aperture, gave a satisfied grunt and opened the lid to its full width. A moment later, he had slipped out into a broad, faintly lighted corridor, which was unoccupied and bare except for a number of large cases piled up at one side.

"It's one of the storage rooms," stated the Lightning Bolt, who had come out just after Harry. "Good! Very good! They'll never look for us here!"

"Well, now that we're out of jail, I don't propose to let myself be taken back alive!" Harry swore. "Which way shall we go?"

HE glanced about him uncertainly; and, since one choice seemed as good as another, he turned at random to his left, and began moving stealthily along one of the walls, with his followers pressing behind him in a long line.

For several hundred yards they moved through the long, deserted gallery. Their steps were slow and muffled, their eyes alert for the sign of every suspicious presence. But no danger signal appeared; and they were feeling just a little more confident when, creeping around a turn in the gallery Harry found himself face to face with a sight that caused his heart to give a great leap and his whole form to shudder involuntarily.

A corps of eight mechanical guards, each twelve feet tall, stared at him almost within touching distance!

In a panic, he was about to turn and flee; but the Cipher, darting up behind him, drew him back with a restraining, "Come, come, there's no danger! These guards are merely being stored here, and are not in use at the moment."

"Yes, but they may be in use very soon!" protested Harry.

"Not if I can help it!" denied the Cipher. And he approached the foremost giant, and, drawing open a little iron door in its trunk, revealed a number of glass bulbs, like the tubes of a radio. These he battered to bits with a steel rod; while some of his companions performed similar services for the other seven guards. "That will fix them," he said. "They are now about as useful as a motor can without a motor."

"Or a man without a heart," put in the Lightning Bolt.

Again the procession started on its way, through a long series of storage rooms. "Do you suppose they know where we are? Do you suppose we are being followed?" was the question on every one's lips. But nowhere was there any sign of pursuers, and it was assumed that their escape in the darkness had put their enemies off the trail.

As they crept on their way, they took time to examine the crates and boxes piled about them. In some of the cases they found canned and dried goods, which they seized avidly; and bottled beverages, with which they quenched their thirst. But what Harry leapt upon with a shout of especial joy was a case of "riflecs"—a development upon the old-time rifles,—instruments as compact and easily carried as rifles and yet capable of discharging as many bullets as machine-guns. Arming himself and several score of his followers with these redoubtable weapons along with a sufficiency of ammunition, Harry for the first time felt capable of facing attack.

"Just where do you think we are?" he paused to inquire of the Cipher, after they had wandered through other long, connecting storage rooms. "It seems as if we might go on forever like this, without ever getting anywhere."

"All the storage rooms are deep underground beneath the Hives," stated the Cipher. "What we must do is try to work up."

ACTING upon this advice, Harry led his followers up several winding stairways to still other dimly lighted corridors, which also served for storage purposes. But he was as uncertain as ever of the way out; and in his heart a new fear began to gather—the dread that he would waste so much time amid these mazes that it would be impossible to strike before the Tyngall's marriage to Celia.

But when he was most tormented by this thought, a startled cry sent a new wave of hope rushing over him. "See that little green light down there—way down there!" shouted the Lighning Bolt, pointing toward the end of the corridor, two or three hundred yards off. "That means an exit."

"Yes—green is always the sign of an exit!" affirmed several of the others.

When they had reached the indicated point, they observed a sliding platform, similar to the old-time escalators but much larger, which began moving upon the turning of a switch and bore them up several hundred feet. They now found themselves in a dimly lighted circular chamber from which numerous hallways branched in all directions; while in the center stood a huge signpost with colored pointers: "To the Day Noons. . . . To the Mills. . . . To Hive M. . . . To the Crystal Tower. . . . To Hive J. . . . To Hive W. . . ." But still they saw no sign of any other living creature.

"Good! This is just made to order!" exclaimed the Lightning Bolt, coming up and clapping Harry affectionately on the shoulder. "We're still in the hours of sleep—or the nightime, as I believe you ancients called it. That's why the lights are all dim and the place is deserted. We'll have to make the best of our opportunity before the hours of waking."

"If we could only find our way to the central office," meditated Harry. "That is, the room where the radio engineers direct the mechanical workers by remote control!"

"Then let's go to Hive W," suggested the Cipher. "I believe I've heard it said that Hive W is the place. On the hundreth floor, if I remember correctly—"

"Yes, that's it!" corroborated the Lightning Bolt. "It's the very nerve-center of Hudson Highlands."

"I'm afraid we haven't time before the hours of waking," warned the Cipher, as the long column started stealthily away again. "If we're caught—well, you know the probable end!"

Hastening his footsteps, Harry made his way through intricate winding galleries, following a green line varied with an occasional arrow that read, "To Hive W." At any moment, he knew, the wall bulbs might flash into brilliance, mechanical guards might start clattering toward him, and he and his men might hopelessly trapped. It seemed a long while before a large sign in dull red announced, "HIVE W. First Floor." But the real difficulties, apparently, only commenced when they started the ascent toward the hundredth floor.

The stairways, narrow and tortuous, appeared never-ending; they purposely avoided the main passageways and followed dim back-flights among whose shadows each moment they expected to see some lurking foe leap up. Thirty, forty stories they ascended; then, panting and half exhausted, had to pause for breath; then once more resumed the weary climb, constantly afraid that the reviving lights of the "waking hours" would catch them unprepared.

"Can it be that the Tyngall is laying a trap, and is waiting for us to step into it?" they asked, a little surprised that they had not been molested.

But more and more they were becoming convinced that their escape through the pneumatic tubes had been unobserved.

THEY had a little of the feeling of triumphant mountain climbers when at length a sign announced: "Hundredth floor: Division of radio operation." . . . "This way," directed Harry, starting down a corridor bearing the placard, "To the Main Headquarters"; and he was congratulating himself upon being within a hair's breadth of success, when suddenly, to every one's consternation, a row of dazzling white lights burst out, flooding them with a radiance as of daylight.

"By the eyes of the Tyngall!" groaned the Cipher. "The hours of sleep are over!"

"If we don't retreat like a shot, we'll be caught!" walled the Lightning Bolt.

"But where will we retreat to?" demanded Harry, blinking beneath the sudden brilliance. "I'd just as soon be taken face forward as with my back turned!"

"If you don't hurry, it will be too late to tum your back!" insisted the Lightning Bolt, making a sudden about-face. "If you think I have any craving for the torture chambers—"

"Caught hot-footed as spies in the radio section—it's a Grade A offense!" lamented the Cipher. "To be torn limb from limb would be nothing by comparison—"

"Retreat at a time like this is the better part of valor!" sighed the Lightning Bolt, as, amid a confused, panicky throng, he began pushing his way back with increasing speed.

"Run, if you want, like cowards!" snarled Harry, seeing his whole revolt about to collapse. "I'm going on!"

Firmly grasping his riflec, he strode forward a pace or two, while the others wavered and halted. Then involuntarily he stopped short, with a gasp of dismay. A doorway half a score of yards away opened, and eight or ten gaudily attired toga-wearing men dismounted from little cushioned cars.

To Harry's overheated fancy, it was clear that his conspiracy had been tracked down—that the newcomers were the first of a contingent of police. But if he must die fighting he was at all events determined to sell his life dearly. Darting forward again he pointed his riflec threateningly at the newcomers.

He was a little surprised to note the astonishment on their faces; the look of startled horror that possessed them all. For a moment they stood staring at him in amazement that showed just a little of incredulity, as if they could not quite trust the testimony of their own eyes.

"What—what in the Tyngall's name do you do here?" the foremost of the strangers at last demanded.

"Don't move one step—not one step!" warned Harry, turning his riflec toward the speaker's heart.

"What are you—a madman?" shot out the menaced one, indignantly.

"AND what are those fellow lunatics of yours?" bawled a second of the toga-wearing ones, pointing to Harry's followers, who had rallied and were drawing around with their riflecs pointed. "What can they want of us, mere inoffensive radio operators—"

"Radio operators?" Harry echoed, a sudden light bursting upon him: and his head reeled at the giddy prospects that suddenly unraveled. "Radio operators? So you're the ones that move the mechanical workers?"

"Yes—and you're keeping us from our duties!" cried one of the victims, accusingly. "Until you let us go, not a laborer will lift an arm in the Mills, not a waiter will serve break fast in the Day Rooms, not a guard in the Lower Residential Quarters—"

"Enough! We have other duties for you! " Harry interrupted, sternly. "Forward march—all of you! Into the engineering rooms! You will move the mechanical workers and guards—but only as we say! Forward—unless you want some riflec bullets through your heads!"

The engineers hesitated. But, on all sides, they saw the iron muzzles pointed at them. Weaponless and outnumbered, they had no choice!

Muttering curses and scowling, their leader slowly stepped forward, drew a key from his pocket, and reluctantly fitted it into the lock of a door marked "Central Engineering Room."

"We obey—under protest!" he barked at Harry, as he cowered beneath the rifle. "But who in the name of the green lightning may you be?"

"Me?" Harry drew out his chest, and stood proud and erect, an imposing figure of more than six feet. "I should advise you to be more respectful, sir, in addressing the next Tyngall of Tranerica!"

CHAPTER XII

The Ceremonies Are Interrupted

IN the Golden Room of the Tyngall's palace, the preparations had been completed. The heavy yellow metal, which of old had been valued by tradesmen and bankers but was now used chiefly as an ornament, filled the spacious hall with its gleam and its glitter. Gold-leaf shone from the high fretted ceiling; gold-leaf glistened along the walls; the wide polished mirrors had frames of solid gold; there were golden trays and platters, and tables with gold tops; the very chairs were upholstered in gold-braided cloth, and the tapestries were gold-inwrought; while the busts and figurines that littered the room were of the unalloyed metal.

Into this sumptuous hall, early on the morning of the thirty-first of January, there filed a notable company. High-ranking dignitaries, all of whom bore in their veins a drop or two of the noble blood of Spratt, came trooping in clad in their dress-togas of shimmering lilac, orange, cherry or lemon; while their spouses, with their pantaloons and high-buttoned jackets of dignified brown or gray as became the gentler sex, accompanied them sedately, or followed in little chattering parties, bearing gifts of golden flowers or of fruits neatly fashioned in gold. Excitement was in the air, particularly where the ladies gathered in their fluttering groups. . . . "Oh, what do you think she's like? . . . I really don't care for her picture. . . . They say she's a foreigner—Think of that! . . . Wonder where he could have picked her up? . . . Must be a very forward type, otherwise our Tyngall, poor susceptible man! would never have been taken in!"

Such were but a few of the comments whispered from ear to ear as the company gathered and at length formed itself in a crowd hundreds deep. As time went on, gay strains of music, appropriate to the occasion, filled the air from an unseen radio receiver; huge floral wreaths were borne in; and a song, "All hail the Tyngall!" was sung by a chorus of dozens of voices. Finally, amid an awed hush, the chief functionary arrived; a man bearing the honorary ancient title of "Minister," although he had long ceased to have any religious duties other than those of signing birth certificates and marriage contracts. All clad in a glossy golden robe, with a tufted golden headdress and golden sandals, he strutted into the room with a due sense of the dignity of his position—so much so that one might have wondered if it were not he rather than the Tyngall that was to be married.

Time wore on; and the guests, amid their chirpings and gossipings, began to grow impatient. Every now and then the spectators would glance uneasily toward a little gold-enmeshed door, from which the bride and bridegroom were expected to emerge; but the door did not open, and anxious speculations began to be circulated as the minutes dragged away. Even the Minister, tugging at his tufted headgear, beneath which he was sweating profusely, began to look irritated; although, of course, the dignity of his position forbade him to make any remark.

MEANWHILE, behind the little gold-enmeshed door, the dictator stood glaring at his intended spouse, who sat hunched up in a chair, her tear-stained face buried in her arms.

"Come, come, dear lady," he harangued, in tones of great annoyance, "this is a fine way to carry on! Not for nothing did the ancient sages call women the most unreliable creatures that ever walked the earth. Here the wedding guests are all assembled, and the most elaborate ceremony in half a century has been prepared, and what do you do?—You weep! Yes, weep! and get your face all red and ugly! Do you think I want to present my bride in that condition?"

With an expression of disgust on his pale, puffy features, the Tyngall ran one hand despairingly across his bald pate; while he took a deliberate stride or two about the room.

"A splendid way to start our married life!" he went on. "You'd better pull yourself together, I warn you—or they'll be no happy days ahead for either of us! Here—I'll tell you what!"—He paused long enough to glance at the great clock on the opposite wall. "I'll give you just half an hour. In that time you'll be able to wash and powder up a bit, and look as the bride of a Spratt should!"

"But I don't want to be the bride of a Spratt!" she sobbed.

"Nonsense, dear lady! The point is too silly to be worth arguing. When destiny brings you a great gift, the thing to do is to accept it—and not question whether you want it or not."

He was interrupted by a voice that sounded through a little tube high up on the wall. "Your Excellency, Tyngall Spratt! I beg leave to inform you that the guests are growing more impatient. Unpleasant rumors are springing up. What shall I tell them now?"

"Tell them the bride is still arranging the details of her outfit!" growled the dictator, recognizing the voice of his secretary.

"You see, there's no use being childish," the Tyngall went on, turning back to the sobbing figure. "If you don't want to be presentable, we'll let you be married just the way you are."

Beneath the force of this argument, the girl began slowly to dry her tears.

"The trouble is," grumbled the Tyngall, as he ruefully eyed his bride-to-be, "you don't appreciate me. Here I've been mild and considerate and never so much as pressed a kiss upon you, when I could have taken you by force, if I'd been anything like the villains of the old story books. Of course, no one ever is like that nowadays. But I suppose you still prefer this upstart, Har—"

"Why shouldn't I prefer him? He's no upstart, either!" proclaimed Celia, beating her fists angrily against the chair.

"It's lucky for him he has no number," meditated the Tyngall. "My detectives searched for him everywhere in the Day Rooms, but couldn't find a trace of him. Of course, that was to be expected—the detectives rarely find a trace of anything. But if we had caught him,—well, by the blue thunders, he wouldn't have bothered us again!"

"You never will catch him!" challenged Celia. "He's too smart for you!"

"Smart? I don't know that word. Oh, you mean, tricky? Well, if ever I see him again, his tricks will get him nothing! He will regret the day when his father met his mother!"

Several minutes more went by while Celia, drying her tears, did her best to resign herself to the inevitable. If she was to be married anyhow, she reasoned, she might as well make a good appearance as a poor one.

BUT she could not permit herself to take the Tyngall's arm as the little gold-meshed door was opened and she entered the reception hall. She still looked tormented and strained; yet if there were any who noticed the tear-marks on her face, they thought these perfectly natural in one who was so soon to have the great happiness of marrying a Tyngall; and, besides, a bride so young and tender-looking was certain to evoke favor, particularly among the hardier and more susceptible sex.

To Celia's senses the scene was like a nightmare, with the crowds of people, the excited exclamations, the congratulations, the murmurs of we and admiration, the glitter of bright lights, the glare of the omnipresent gold, and the atmosphere of formality that filled the great, elaborately outfitted hall. It seemed to her that she was living through some fearful dream when, at the Tyngall's side, she was marched to the center of the room while the crowd made way before her and a figure in a golden robe and golden headdress stood on a little platform with a gold-bound book, which he gravely opened. "For our text today," she thought she heard him proclaim, "let us take a passage from the twenty-second century sage Halperi. 'They that are united shall be blessed.' Surely, nothing could be more blessed than that mating now about to be consummated, between the Tyngall of Tranerica and one whom, to judge by appearances—"

The figure in the golden robe, Celia afterwards remembered, cast a benevolent, almost an endearing smile at her. She also recalled that there was much more which he said, about the "duties of a Tyngalless" and the "continuation of the great dynasty of Spratt." But the next thing that she sharply recollected had nothing to do with the golden-robed one, nor with the rolling phrases that slid from his tongue.

Suddenly—so suddenly that the guests had barely time to turn, and gasp in consternation—a huge door at the center of the room burst open with a clattering sound. There came the rattling of steel; and a corps of mechanical guards, each of ten-foot stature, thumped into the room. While the guests, in terror, scattered before their advance, they strode toward the Tyngall, who gave one startled glance and turned to flee—only to rush straight into the arms of a second corps of mechanized giants, which had broken in at another entrance.

"By the blood of the Spratts! it's treason! base treason!" he barely had time to cry. And then, while he struggled helplessly in the arms of an iron captor and the guests looked on with equal helplessness, the guards executed a rapid about-face and went clanking out, bearing with them the distracted Tyngall, whose cries could be heard even after he had disappeared, "Treason! Treason! By the blood of the Spratts! it's treason! base treason!"

* * *

A month had gone by. Harry stood side by side with Celia in the Crystal Room, gazing out toward the dark towering masses of the Hives. One arm was around the girl's waist; his eyes had a whimsical sparkle, and there was something a little playful in his manner as he spoke: "Well, dearest, how do you like being a Tyngalless? The Tyngalless of all Tranerica!"

"Seems I take to it just like a duck to water," she returned, looking up at him with a coy smile. "That is, considering who the Tyngall is."

"IT was a pretty close shave at that," he meditated, brushing back his heavy mop of hair, in which the red was reappearing beneath the black dye. "When I consider how nearly that Spratt got you—"

"I was simply electrified," she finished for him, with an admiring glance in his direction. "It was breath-taking, the way you burst in upon us, after the mechanical guards carried off the old Tyngall. And then the way you ordered the guests around, with the guards to help you, and decided to let the wedding ceremonies go on—with yourself in Mr. Spratt's place! I don't think the Minister would have married us, if he hadn't been so scared you could see him shivering."

"Well, he didn't have much choice, with the guards clattering all around him!" laughed Harry. "My friends the Cipher and the Lightning Bolt were in the radio room all the while, making sure everything was run properly. By the way, I'm expecting them here any minute. I'm going to appoint the Cipher Governor of South Tranerica. And the Lightning Bolt—I'll make him ambassador to Afasia."

Harry took a stride about the Crystal Room, and raised his arms in a gesture of exaltation. "It's great to be a Tyngall," he declared. "My followers—you know, the ex-prisoners—are established in every radio room on the continent. They say the land was never before ruled so efficiently or intelligently."

"And that's nothing to what you're still going to do," Celia predicted, coming to him with a smile. "After all, aren't you glad, dearest, that we came to the twenty-fifth century?"

"It was the wisest act of our livest" he returned, gathering her into his arms. And then, as he glanced down through the fifteen-hundred-foot gulf to the Hudson and out across the interminable black bulks of the Hives and knew that he was lord of this and of all Tranerica, he heaved a deep, thankful sigh. "If only our friends in the twentieth century could see us now!" he exclaimed. "Who would ever have thought we were born to be a Tyngall and a Tyngalless!"

Meanwhile, in the obscure depths more than a quarter of a mile below, an unimpressive little man with a stumpy frame, bald pate and puffy face, moved unnoticed amid the crowds in the Day Rooms. His toga, of a pale lavender like that of many other males, was not such as to attract attention; his eyes were eager, like those of a traveler in a strange land, who finds everything of interest; but his manner was just a little bewildered, as though he did not feel himself to be quite in his element. From time to time, when some one accosted him and inquired his number, he would reply meekly, "I have none, I'm sorry to say"—whereat he would tum and go wandering away again, like a ghost among the shades of Hades.

"After all, I'm not so badly off," he meditated, as he rambled among the lawny walks. "It was pretty decent of the new Tyngall to spare my life and send me down to the Day Rooms. Besides, no one recognizes me here. That's because they've taken my jeweled robe. But I was getting pretty much bored with ruling, anyhow. It's more interesting here. There's more variety. Besides—come to think of it—I was mighty lucky not having to marry that weepy woman. She'd have led me a devil's life. . . ."

"The only thing I'm sorry for," he went on, "is that my dimension machine was broken. I would have liked to experiment some more. Who knows? I might have projected myself forward to the twenty-seventh or twentieth-eight century. Of course, I would have had to avoid the barbarian twentieth and twenty-first. . . ."

AT this point his reveries were interrupted by a shout, "Tyngall! Oh, Tyngall! Hail Tyngall!"

Out of old habit, he was about to draw himself up stiff and erect, and look cold and official, as he always did when hailed; but the final word struck him like a chilling splash of water.

"Tyngall! Oh, Tyngall! Hail Tyngall Harry!" was home to his ears, in an excited chorus. The cry was repeated, again and again; and swept onward by a burst of mob emotion, he found himself one of a multitude gathered before a signboard, where a mechanical worker nailed a printed notice:

"HIVITIES OF TRANERICA," greetings! After decades of inactivity, the government has taken steps to remedy the unemployment problem. It is not known how many billions are out of work. But as fast as we are able, we are going to retire the mechanical workers from industry, and give their places to living men. Applications for the first hundred million positions may be made immediately. Blanks are obtainable in all the Day Rooms. Tranerica shall enjoy a New Deal!

"Heaven be praised!" muttered Hannibal Fairchild Spratt the Seventh, as he hastened away to secure an application blank. "For the first time in my life, I'll have a real job!"

His heart beat with such a rush of joy, and there was such thankfulness within him, that he scarcely heard the shout of the multitude as it repeated, exultantly, "Hail Tyngall Harry!"