_
PART III
The Thing Happens
_A summer afternoon in the year 2170 A.D. The official parlor of the
President of the British Islands. A board table, long enough for three
chairs at each side besides the presidential chair at the head and an
ordinary chair at the foot, occupies the breadth of the room. On the
table, opposite every chair, a small switchboard with a dial. There is
no fireplace. The end wall is a silvery screen nearly as large as a pair
of folding doors. The door is on your left as you face the screen; and
there is a row of thick pegs, padded and covered with velvet, beside it.
A stoutish middle-aged man, good-looking and breezily genial, dressed
in a silk smock, stockings, handsomely ornamented sandals, and a gold
fillet round his brows, comes in. He is like Joyce Burge, yet also like
Lubin, as if Nature had made a composite photograph of the two men.
He takes off the fillet and hangs it on a peg; then sits down in the
presidential chair at the head of the table, which is at the end
farthest from the door. He puts a peg into his switchboard; turns
the pointer on the dial; puts another peg in; and presses a button.
Pages:
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294