amazingly. Among other things, he fell to praising a new historical
romance that one of the great popular story-tellers of the day had just
put forth. It was, of course, about the spacious times of Queen
Victoria; and the author, among other pleasing novelties, made a little
argument before each section of the story, in imitation of the chapter
headings of the old-fashioned books: as for example, "How the Cabmen of
Pimlico stopped the Victoria Omnibuses, and of the Great Fight in Palace
Yard," and "How the Piccadilly Policeman was slain in the midst of his
Duty." The man in green and yellow praised this innovation. "These pithy
sentences," he said, "are admirable. They show at a glance those
headlong, tumultuous times, when men and animals jostled in the filthy
streets, and death might wait for one at every corner. Life was life
then! How great the world must have seemed then! How marvellous! They
were still parts of the world absolutely unexplored. Nowadays we have
almost abolished wonder, we lead lives so trim and orderly that courage,
endurance, faith, all the noble virtues seem fading from mankind."

And so on, taking the girls' thoughts with him, until the life they led,
life in the vast and intricate London of the twenty-second century, a
life interspersed with soaring excursions to every part of the globe,
seemed to them a monotonous misery compared with the daedal past.

At first Elizabeth did not join in the conversation, but after a time
the subject became so interesting that she made a few shy
interpolations. But he scarcely seemed to notice her as he talked. He
went on to describe a new method of entertaining people. They were
hypnotised, and then suggestions were made to them so skilfully that
they seemed to be living in ancient times again. They played out a
little romance in the past as vivid as reality, and when at last they
awakened they remembered all they had been through as though it were a
real thing.

"It is a thing we have sought to do for years and years," said the
hypnotist. "It is practically an artificial dream. And we know the way
at last. Think of all it opens out to us--the enrichment of our
experience, the recovery of adventure, the refuge it offers from this
sordid, competitive life in which we live! Think!"

"And you can do that!" said the chaperone eagerly.

"The thing is possible at last," the hypnotist said. "You may order a
dream as you wish."

The chaperone was the first to