Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/61

 chance of a jaunt anywhere, as my wife would allege of both old White and myself, notwithstanding all the usual sobering of years to both of us. My foreman, Gray, was quite trustworthy in one's absence, and I felt that a little bit of travel at times did one good.

I hardly know whether it was the fresh sea air during our protracted saunter over the Brighton beach, or that the excellent Allsopp had been even more than ordinarily relished, but any way I confess to having felt unusually comfortable so soon as I was once more at home, and was bundled into my accustomed easy chair by the bright fire. I had already spread before me my favourite studies for holiday snatches, and other leisure moments, so as never to be losing precious time. Before me lay the last Statistical Society issue, with the population increase for the last decade, together with some ingenious calculations as to that for centuries further ahead. There were also some last weekly numbers of Nature, with, amongst others, some articles on sunspots and red flames, which I had proposed to dip into till tea time. There was quite a buzz of tea preparation through the room, with the pleasant clatter of cups and saucers. The last sounds that fell distinctly on my ears were the fuffings of the tea-urn, as our Biddy-of-all-work put it upon the table behind me. After that, all my thoughts were galloping off to suns and systems far outside of our poor little earth, of which, none the less, we are ever apt to think so much, although it is truly of the very essence of littleness in the grand comparison.