“You are not mistaken, sir,” replied his dragoman; “people still open their mouths over this consummation. It is pre-eminently an instance of what will happen sometimes when you are not looking, even to the English, who have been most fortunate in this respect. For you must remember that all Parties, even the Pundits, have always declared that rural life and all that, don’t you know? is most necessary, and have ever asserted that they were fostering it to the utmost. But they forgot to remember that our circumstances, traditions, education, and vested interests so favoured town life and the ‘good of trade’ that it required a real and unparliamentary effort not to take that line of least resistance. In fact, we have here a very good example of what I told you the other day was our most striking characteristic--never knowing where we are till after the event. But what with fog and principles, how can you expect we should? Better be a little town blighter with no constitution and high political principles, than your mere healthy country product of a pampered industry. But you have not yet seen the other side of the moon.” “To what do you refer?” asked the Angel. “Why, sir, to the glorious expansion of the towns. To this I shall introduce you to-morrow, if such be your pleasure.” “Is London, then, not a town?” asked the Angel playfully. “London?” cried his dragoman; “a mere pleasure village. To which real town shall I take you? Liverchester?” “Anywhere,” said the Angel, “where I can get a good dinner.” So saying, he paid the rural population with a smile and spread his wings. III “The night is yet young,” said the Angel Æthereal on leaving the White Heart Hostel at Liverchester, “and I have had perhaps too much to eat. Let us walk and see the town.” “As you will, sir,” replied his dragoman; “there is no difference between night and day, now that they are using the tides for the provision of electric power.” The Angel took a note of the fact. “What do they manufacture here?” he asked. “The entire town,” returned his dragoman, “which now extends from the old Liverpool to the old Manchester (as indeed its name implies), is occupied with expanding the tabloids of food which are landed in its port from the new worlds. This and the town of Brister, reaching from the old Bristol to the old Gloucester, have had the monopoly of food expansion for the United Kingdom since 1940.” “By what means precisely?” asked the Angel. “Congenial environment and bacteriology,” responded his dragoman. They walked for some time in silence, flying a little now and then in the dirtier streets, before the Angel spoke again: “It is curious,” he said, “but I perceive no difference between this town and those I remember on my visit in 1910, save that the streets are better lighted, which is not an unmixed joy, for they are dirty and full of people whose faces do not please me.”