Page:Diary of a Pilgrimage (1891).pdf/267

Rh "What's the matter?" he asked; "anything disturbed you?"

"No," I said; "I always wake up like this, when I feel I've had enough sleep. What century is this?"

"This," he said, "is the twenty-ninth century. You have been asleep just one thousand years."

"Ah! well, I feel all the better for it," I replied, getting down off the table. "There's nothing like having one's sleep out."

"I take it you are going to do the usual thing," said the old gentleman to me, as I proceeded to put on my clothes, which had been lying beside me in the case. "You'll want me to walk round the city with you, and explain all the changes to you, while you ask questions and make silly remarks?"

"Yes," I replied, "I suppose that's what I ought to do."

"I suppose so," he muttered. "Come on, and let's get it over," and he led the way from the room.

As we went downstairs, I said:

"Well, is it all right, now?"

"Is what all right?" he replied.

"Why, the world," I answered. "A few friends of mine were arranging, just before I went to bed, to take it to pieces and fix it up again properly. Have they got it all right by this time? Is everybody equal now, and sin and sorrow and all that sort of thing done away with?"

"Oh, yes," replied my guide; "you'll find everything all right now. We've been working away pretty hard at things while you've been asleep. We've just got this earth about perfect now, I should say. Nobody is allowed to do anything wrong or silly; and as for equality, tadpoles ain't in it with us."