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"A Dip into the Future."

Then we fell in with a band of strange men and one was addressing them; at his right hand was a golden abacus, with which he expounded the mystic cyphers.

Quoth he: "Look ye! Here are the quantities of five and of six. I ask ye, what shall I do to make the quantity of ten?"

Whereupon, my friend Simon called out, saving "Extract thy digit!"

And lo, they all set upon poor Simon, some with bare hands, some with swords. In a trice he was down and his head cleft from neck to crown.

And even as hungry wolves, they thrust their hands within his poor broken head and, holding the pale flesh, peered thereon.

And as for me, I was transfixed with horror. "Eheu!" I cried, me miserum to lose so a friend!

Then I thought to tear these murderers limb from limb. And while thinking, I hied me off and soon drew near the castle, half a league away.

There I sat me down and pondered deeply. Wherefore these strange happenings?

And out of the chest I drew the chain and the other chain and laid them on the table.

And I called on Ra, and Dido, and the Seven Doges, saying, "Is it for naught, we fear thy mighty rumblings and thy flashes of fire? Wherefore did Simon suffer so untimely a death? O, omnipotent ones, I pray thee, join again these Chains of reason!"

And lo, there was a peal of thunder and a flash of fire and the Chains were joined.

Full of joy, I girded them on. "O Reason," I cried, "Reveal! Reveal!" And there came before me the faces of the band, saying,^* "We are not of thee, nor of thy friend Simon, nor are we men at all. We are only what is sure to be, and must wait at the door of Science for year on year. But we will come."—From "Thoughts After Wine."

C.J.W.