nd history! Practically I know no history. The Sleeper and Julius
Caesar are all the same to me. It's interesting to hear you talk of
these things."

"I know a few things," said the old man. "I know a thing or two. But--.
Hark!"

The two men became silent, listening. There was heavy thud, a concussion
that made their seat shiver. The passers-by stopped, shouted to one
another. The old man was full of questions; he shouted to a man who
passed near. Graham, emboldened by his example, got up and accosted
others. None knew what had happened.

He returned to the seat and found the old man muttering vague
interrogations in an undertone. For a while they said nothing to one
another.

The sense of this gigantic struggle, so near and yet so remote oppressed
Graham's imagination. Was this old man right, was the report of the
people right, and were the revolutionaries winning? Or were they all in
error, and were the red guards driving all before them? At any time the
flood of warfare might pour into this silent quarter of the city and
seize upon him again. It behooved him to learn all he could while there
was time. He turned suddenly to the old man with a question and left it
unsaid. But his motion moved the old man to speech again.

"Eh! but how things work together!" said the old man. "This Sleeper that
all the fools put their trust in! I've the whole history of it--I was
always a good one for histories. When I was a boy--I'm that old--I
used to read printed books. You'd hardly think it. Likely you've seen
none--they rot and dust so--and the Sanitary Company burns them to make
ashlarite. But they were convenient in their dirty way. Oh I learnt a
lot. These new-fangled Babble Machines--they don't seem new-fangled to
you, eh?--they're easy to hear, easy to forget. But I've traced all the
Sleeper business from the first."

"You will scarcely believe it," said Graham slowly, "I'm so
ignorant--I've been so preoccupied in my own little affairs, my
circumstances have been so odd--I know nothing of this Sleeper's
history. Who was he?"

"Eh!" said the old man. "I know. I know. He was a poor nobody, and set
on a playful woman, poor soul! And he fell into a trance. There's the
old things they had, those brown things--silver photographs--still
showing him as he lay, a gross and a half years ago--a gross and a half
of years."

"Set on a playful woman, poor soul," said Graham softly to himself, and
then aloud, "Yes--well! go on."