t to its
fulfilment. There were astonishing changes. The small hours found Mr.
Maydig and Mr. Fotheringay careering across the chilly market-square
under the still moon, in a sort of ecstasy of thaumaturgy, Mr. Maydig
all flap and gesture, Mr. Fotheringay short and bristling, and no longer
abashed at his greatness. They had reformed every drunkard in the
Parliamentary division, changed all the beer and alcohol to water (Mr.
Maydig had overruled Mr. Fotheringay on this point); they had, further,
greatly improved the railway communication of the place, drained
Flinder's swamp, improved the soil of One Tree Hill, and cured the
Vicar's wart. And they were going to see what could be done with the
injured pier at South Bridge. "The place," gasped Mr. Maydig, "won't be
the same place to-morrow. How surprised and thankful everyone will be!"
And just at that moment the church clock struck three.

"I say," said Mr. Fotheringay, "that's three o'clock! I must be getting
back. I've got to be at business by eight. And besides, Mrs. Wimms--"

"We're only beginning," said Mr. Maydig, full of the sweetness of
unlimited power. "We're only beginning. Think of all the good we're
doing. When people wake--"

"But--," said Mr. Fotheringay.

Mr. Maydig gripped his arm suddenly. His eyes were bright and wild. "My
dear chap," he said, "there's no hurry. Look"--he pointed to the moon at
the zenith--"Joshua!"

"Joshua?" said Mr. Fotheringay.

"Joshua," said Mr. Maydig. "Why not? Stop it."

Mr. Fotheringay looked at the moon.

"That's a bit tall," he said after a pause.

"Why not?" said Mr. Maydig. "Of course it doesn't stop. You stop the
rotation of the earth, you know. Time stops. It isn't as if we were
doing harm."

"H'm!" said Mr. Fotheringay. "Well." He sighed. "I'll try. Here--"

He buttoned up his jacket and addressed himself to the habitable globe,
with as good an assumption of confidence as lay in his power. "Jest stop
rotating, will you," said Mr. Fotheringay.

Incontinently he was flying head over heels through the air at the rate
of dozens of miles a minute. In spite of the innumerable circles he was
describing per second, he thought; for thought is wonderful--sometimes
as sluggish as flowing pitch, sometimes as instantaneous as light. He
thought in a second, and willed. "Let me come down safe and sound.
Whatever else happens, let me down safe and sound."

He willed it only just in time, for his clothes, heated by his ra