it before. In this was a
ladder--the first ladder he had seen since his awakening--up which they
went, and came into a high, dark, cold place in which was another almost
vertical ladder. This they ascended, Graham still perplexed.

But at the top he understood, and recognized the metallic bars to which
he clung. He was in the cage under the ball of St. Paul's. The dome rose
but a little way above the general contour of the city, into the still
twilight, and sloped away, shining greasily under a few distant lights,
into a circumambient ditch of darkness.

Out between the bars he looked upon the wind-clear northern sky and saw
the starry constellations all unchanged. Capella hung in the west, Vega
was rising, and the seven glittering points of the Great Bear swept
overhead in their stately circle about the Pole.

He saw these stars in a clear gap of sky. To the east and south the
great circular shapes of complaining wind-wheels blotted out the
heavens, so that the glare about the Council House was hidden. To the
south-west hung Orion, showing like a pallid ghost through a tracery of
iron-work and interlacing shapes above a dazzling coruscation of lights.
A bellowing and siren screaming that came from the flying stages warned
the world that one of the aeroplanes was ready to start. He remained for
a space gazing towards the glaring stage. Then his eyes went back to the
northward constellations.

For a long time he was silent. "This," he said at last, smiling in the
shadow, "seems the strangest thing of all. To stand in the dome of Saint
Paul's and look once more upon these familiar, silent stars!"

Thence Graham was taken by Asano along devious ways to the great
gambling and business quarters where the bulk of the fortunes in the
city were lost and made. It impressed him as a well-nigh interminable
series of very high halls, surrounded by tiers upon tiers of galleries
into which opened thousands of offices, and traversed by a complicated
multitude of bridges, footways, aerial motor rails, and trapeze and
cable leaps. And here more than anywhere the note of vehement vitality,
of uncontrollable, hasty activity, rose high. Everywhere was violent
advertisement, until his brain swam at the tumult of light and colour.
And Babble Machines of a peculiarly rancid tone were abundant and filled
the air with strenuous squealing and an idiotic slang. "Skin your eyes
and slide," "Gewhoop, Bonanza," "Gollipers come and hark!"

The