"We must proceed, gentlemen. I have word from above that the night is fine and everything propitious for an excellent view of your planet, but storms come suddenly and we can never be sure of the weather on the outer crust. It is well to make haste." We started stumblingly, each of us led by a soldier to whom the way was plain. We were jostled here and there through the gloom, and finally were made to mount some object which gave a metallic ring beneath our feet. "This is the royal lift," explained the king. "When the heat of the day is suspended I often go above." He then addressed himself to Olox. "Give the signal at once." The signal was given and we shot aloft. The transformation from the fury of a storm to the light and tranquillity of the underworld had been great and astounding; but this second transformation was none the less impressive. We emerged into a wonderful night set with stars that were perfectly familiar to me. The Dipper and Polaris were in the north and occupying relatively the same positions that they do when viewed from Earth—so little effect has the immensities of distance upon their posts in the vault. But our own globe! It hung huge and tremulous in the blue of the evening sky, so plain that we could almost note the continents that gemmed its surface. Meigs gave a whimpering cry and he and Markham and Popham rushed together, fell upon each other’s neck, and wept aloud. "Oh, I wish I was back, I wish I was back!" moaned the broker. "I’m lonesome enough to die!" sobbed Markham. "Exiled, exiled, exiled!" was all the coal baron could murmur in husky tones. I will not say that I was proof against the sentiments that had unmanned the one-time magnates, but I will declare that both Quinn and myself had our feelings under better control. In silence I assisted the professor to plant the telescope and we each gazed longingly at the greenish star magnified to many times its diameter. "There’s the United States!" cried Popham. "Can you see New York?" whispered Meigs hoarsely. "Look for New York, man!" Of course, a view of New York was out of the question, but the frantic ex-plutocrats imagined they could see it, and even look down into Wall Street for aught I know. Again were their emotions too much for them, and they gave way as they had done before. "Mr. Munn," said the professor, "this is harrowing." "It is pretty hard on those gentlemen," I returned, "to be brought face to face with something they thought they owned and yet not be able to possess it." "That remark is unlike you," answered the professor, and turned to the king. "A thought occurred to me while we were coming up on the lift," he went on, "and I should like you to explain." "If it is in my power." answered the king, his eye to the telescope.