te. Personal cleanliness of the people,
and cleanliness of houses, streets--of everything. It is truly
extraordinary to what extent they go to make everything inordinately,
immaculately clean. Possibly for that reason, and because there seems
never to have been any serious disease germs existing here, sickness as
you know it, does not exist."

"Guess you better not go into business here," said the Very Young Man
with a grin at the Doctor.

"There is practically no illness worthy of the name," went on the
Chemist. "The people live out their lives and, barring accident, die
peacefully of old age."

"How old do they live to be?" asked the Big Business Man.

"About the same as with you," answered the Chemist. "Only of course as
we measure time."

"Say how about that?" the Very Young Man asked. "My watch is still
going--is it ticking out the old time or the new time down here?"

"I should say probably--certainly--it was giving time of your own world,
just as it always did," the Chemist replied.

"Well, there's no way of telling, is there?" said the Big Business Man.

"What is the exact difference in time?" the Doctor asked.

"That is something I have had no means of determining. It was rather a
curious thing; when I left that letter for you," the Chemist turned to
the Doctor--"it never occurred to me that although I had told you to
start down here on a certain day, I would be quite at a loss to
calculate when that day had arrived. It was my estimation after my first
trip here that time in this world passed at a rate about two and
two-fifth times faster than it does in your world. That is as near as I
ever came to it. We can calculate it more closely now, since we have
only the interval of your journey down as an indeterminate quantity."

"How near right did you hit it? When did you expect us?" asked the
Doctor.

"About thirty days ago; I have been waiting since then. I sent nearly a
hundred men through the tunnels into the forest to guide you in."

"You taught them pretty good English," said the Very Young Man. "They
were tickled to death that they knew it, too," he added with a
reminiscent grin.

"You say about thirty days; how do you measure time down here?" asked
the Big Business Man.

"I call a day, one complete cycle of sleeping and eating," the Chemist
replied. "I suppose that is the best translation of the Oroid word; we
have a word that means about the same thing."

"How long is a day?" inquired th