erence of its own--even
with a dialect of its own.

They penetrated downward, ever downward, towards the working places.
Presently they passed underneath one of the streets of the moving ways,
and saw its platforms running on their rails far overhead, and chinks of
white lights between the transverse slits. The factories that were not
working were sparsely lighted; to Graham they and their shrouded aisles
of giant machines seemed plunged in gloom, and even where work was going
on the illumination was far less brilliant than upon the public ways.

Beyond the blazing lakes of Eadhamite he came to the warren of the
jewellers, and, with some difficulty and by using his signature,
obtained admission to these galleries. They were high and dark, and
rather cold. In the first a few men were making ornaments of gold
filigree, each man at a little bench by himself, and with a little
shaded light. The long vista of light patches, with the nimble fingers
brightly lit and moving among the gleaming yellow coils, and the intent
face like the face of a ghost, in each shadow had the oddest effect.

The work was beautifully executed, but without any strength of modelling
or drawing, for the most part intricate grotesques or the ringing of
the changes on a geometrical motif. These workers wore a peculiar white
uniform without pockets or sleeves. They assumed this on coming to
work, but at night they were stripped and examined before they left
the premises of the Company. In spite of every precaution, the
Labour policeman told them in a depressed tone, the Company was not
infrequently robbed.

Beyond was a gallery of women busied in cutting and setting slabs of
artificial ruby, and next these were men and women busied together upon
the slabs of copper net that formed the basis of cloisonne tiles. Many
of these workers had lips and nostrils a livid white, due to a disease
caused by a peculiar purple enamel that chanced to be much in fashion.
Asano apologised to Graham for the offence of their faces, but excused
himself on the score of the convenience of this route. "This is what I
wanted to see," said Graham; "this is what I wanted to see," trying to
avoid a start at a particularly striking disfigurement that suddenly
stared him in the face.

"She might have done better with herself than that," said Asano.

Graham made some indignant comments.

"But, Sire, we simply could not stand that stuff without the purple,"
said Asano. "In you