Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/66

 proud of being in any way useful to the cause, and exemplifying a confidence in the honour of modern science which is so worthy of these advanced times, had for the occasion resigned herself unreservedly to the experiment. Her bandage being now whipped off by an electric switch, the instantaneous effect of realizing the surrounding solitude, and the fact that she was separated by quite fifty yards of empty space from any human being, sent the poor old lady off into a faint, from which she did not fully recover until partaking of a dose of well-synthesized old cognac from an adjacent laboratory.

But this sort of thing, as I must and will say, may be all very well for science, but for business it is not always so convenient. Both Brown and I, on that morning, found ourselves blocked by this ongoing upon our way to business. Both of us were some precious minutes late, and who knows what early worms both of us missed on that occasion, and in these competitive times too, when one's weather eye can never be safely shut even for a moment?

But to return to the thread of my story, my young friend and I are now making for the nearest cab-stand. We had decided on a cab, even at its higher cost, rather than the huge regular train-omnibus, as the greater speed of a direct course without stoppages was an object to us, and especially to myself, in view of our now enlarged scheme of travel. Cab-stands in old time used to range in long line upon the surface. But when available spaces there began to fail, some