Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/49

 age. Walls and ceiling were neatly panelled in maple of different colors. Two windows opening on the veranda took up a large part of two sides of the apartment. Besides chairs, a table, book-case, and other articles whose nature I readily recognized, there were many the purpose of which I could only guess.

That object resembling a small harmonium was an electric tachygraph, by which I afterwards learned to commit my thoughts to paper with the rapidity of a shorthand writer. Those other objects were, as I correctly guessed, a telephone and a telegraph apparatus. In another corner was a calculating-machine, an instrument in general use. Opposite the window hung what I sought,— a mirror,—apparently placed there rather for ornament. than for use. A hasty survey of my person proved satisfactory. Accordingly, when my host appeared, to conduet me to the dining-room, I followed without diffidence.

The dining-room was decorated in much the same style. as the apartment I have described above, with the important addition of a few oil-paintings of some age and great merit, but of a school of art entirely strange to me. We took our seats at a round table, the centre of which resembled a parterre, so copiously was it adorned with flowers of various kinds, mostly unknown to me. In the midst of the flowers was a stand containing carafes of water, and what, from the colors, I thought might be wine, but proved to be sherbets.

After the utterance of a short prayer by the head of the household, he pressed on a small knob before him. The parterre in the centre of the table rose slowly before my eyes, in obedience to some concealed mechanism, and