Amazing Stories — page 10: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

- was the mouth of a trumpet. 447 Pr ‘. pre AY PLP OTT ah Dae machine that talked to him as he made his toilet of a morning, might have been the voice of a rein- carnated Blowitz when it dealt with the world’s affairs. This phonographic machine was the size and shape of a Dutch clock, and down the front of it were electric barometric indicators, and an elec- tric clock and calendar, and automatic engagement reminders, and where the clock would have been When it had news, the trumpet gobbled like a turkey, “Galloop, galloop,” and then brayed out its message as, let us say, a trumpet might bray. It would tell Mwres in full, rich, throaty tones about the overnight accidents to the omnibus flying-machines that plied around the world, the latest arrivals at the fashionable resorts in Tibet, and of all the great monopolist company meetings of the day before, while he was dressing. If Mwres did not like hearing what it said, he had only to touch a stud, and it would choke a little and talk about something else. Of course his toilet differed very much from that of his ancestor. It is doubtful which would have been the more shocked and pained to find him- self in the clothing of the other. Mwres would cer- tainly have sooner gone forth to the world stark naked than in the silk hat, frock coat, grey trousers and watch-chain that had filled Mr. Morris with sombre self-respect in the past. [or Mwres there was no shaving to do: a skilful operator had long ago removed every hair-root from his face. His legs he encased in pleasant pink and amber garments an | air-tight material, which with the help of an ‘ingeuious little pump he distended so as to suggest enormous muscles. Above this he also wore pneu- - matic garments beneath an amber sill tunic, so that he was clothed in air and admirably protected against sudden extremes of heat or cold. Over this he flung a scarlet cloak with its edge fantastically curved. On his head, which had been skilfully deprived of every scrap of hair, he adjusted a pleasant little cap of bright scarlet. held on by suction and inflated with hydrogen, and curiously like a comb of a cock. So his toilet was complete; and, conscious of being soberly and becomingly attired, he was ready to face his fellow-beings with a tranquil eye. HIS Mwres—the civility of “Mr.” had vanished ages ago—was one of the officials under the Wind Vane and Waterfall Trust, the great company that owned every wind wheel and waterfall in the world, and which pumped all the water and supplied all the electric energy that people in these latter days required, He lived in a vast hotel near that part of London called Seventh Way, and had very large and comfortable apartments on the seventeenth floor. Households and family life had long since disap- peared with the progressive refinement of manners ; _and indeed the steady rise in rents and land values, the disappearance of domestic servants, the elabora- _ tion of cookery, had rendered the separate domicile of Victorian times impossible, even had any one de- sired such a savage seclusion. When his toilet was pepe: he went towards one of the two doors ch marked with a huge arrow pointing one, id one pie other—touched a stud to lis apartment—there were doors at opposite quaintance—it was not in those days etiquette to talk before breakfast—and seated himself on one of these chairs, and in a few seconds he had been carried to the doors of a lift, by which he descended to the great and splendid hall in which his breakfast would be automatically served. It was a very different meal from a Victorian breakfast. The rude masses of bread needing to be carved and smeared over with animal fat before they ~ could be made palatable, the still recognisable frag- ments of recently killed animals, hideously charred and hacked, the eggs torn ruthlessly from beneath some protesting hen,—such things as these, though they constituted the ordinary fare of Victorian times, would have awakened only horror and disgust in the refined minds of the people oi these latter days. In- stead were pastes and cakes of agreeable and varie- gated design, without any suggestion in colour or form of the unfortunate animals from which their substance and juices were derived. They appeared on little dishes sliding out upon a rail from a little box at one side of the table. The surface of the table, to judge by touch and eye, would have appeared to a nineteenth-century person to be covered with fine white damask, but this was really an oxidised metallic surface, and could be cleaned instantly after a meal. There were hundreds of such little tables in the hall, and at most of them were other latter- day citizens singly or in groups. And as Mwres seated himself before his elegant repast, the invisible orchestra, which had been resting during an interval, resumed and filled the air with music. But Mwres did not display any great interest: either in his breakfast or the music; his eye wan-— dered incessantly about the hall, as though he ex- pected a belated guest. At last he rose eagerly and waved his hand, and simultaneously across the hall appeared a tall dark figure in a costume of yellow and olive green. As this person, walking amidst the tables with measured steps, drew near, the pallid earnestness of his face and the unusual intensity of his eyes became apparent. Mwres reseated himself and pointed to a chair beside him. “I feared you would never come,” he said. In spite of the intervening space of time, the English language was still almost exactly the same as it had been in England under Victoria the Good. ‘The in- vention of the phonograph and such like means of recording sound, and the gradual replacement of books by such contrivances, had not only saved the human eyesight from decay, but had also by the establishment of a sure standard arrested the process of change in accent that had hitherto been so in- evitable. “T was delayed by an interesting case,” «said the man in green and yellow. “A prominent politican— ahem !—suffering from overwork.” He glanced at the breakfast and seated himself. “I have been awake for forty hours.” “Eh dear!” said Mwres: “fancy that! You hyp- notists have your work to do.” Sere —s = Ee The hypnotist helped himself to some attractive Se amber- coloured jelly. “I happen to be a good deal = in Te quest,” he said modestly. _ eaven knows what we should do without you,” os a “Oh! we're: not so indispensable as all that,” 1e hi th flavour ‘of the