Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/393

 an appreciable progress, but with this result, at once inspiring and despairing, that every step of ascent opens to view a still larger field of what remains unknown.

After strolling about for a while, no one around us taking any notice, any more than if we were a couple of harmless stray sheep, we resolved to accost one of these self-absorbed beings, in order to pump some information out of him. We relied on the probability of his being master of the universal telegraph language of our own, so-called "Higher Life." "Yes, you do it. Green," interposed Brown eagerly; and I doubt not he was at the moment thinking of the promising variety of material thus in store for our forthcoming volume. I doubt not, also, that I could, just then, have signally reversed, upon his own pate, that late allocution of his about other people's empty heads, had I chosen to go back upon it. But with all our present high surroundings I rose above that small sort of thing.

Watching our opportunity, we planted ourselves right in front of one advancing form, for there seemed no other way of distracting the attention of these people, in their devoted self-abstraction. This was an elderly man, with the grave but not unpleasant expression that appeared to belong to the whole race. He glanced up at us for a moment, and, with perfectly unchanged expression, was about to make a slight détour, so as to pass round us. But we were not to be done in that way, and so we promptly checkmated him.