Quarters were found for me near by the palace and the Ministry of Work assigned me, for my two parths a day, to the machine shop of the Department of Mechanics at the University. Tickets were issued to me as an advance on my pay, and this enabled me to make many necessary purchases from the government shops, to replace the articles borrowed during my incarceration in the mangool, and to buy presents for Poblath and his fiancee. Among my purchases was the most elaborate and expensive silk toga which I could obtain in the city, so as to enhance my standing and dignity at court functions. A few days after my release the king honored me with an invitation to dinner with him and the princess alone; and this was followed, within a few days, by a banquet to some of the leading nobles—sarkars and barsarkars—and professors of the University—babbuhs. On this latter occasion I met the Cupian professor who had stood at the head table at the banquet at Mooni, and who had later identified and befriended me at the Kuana jail. He was Hah Babbuh, Professor of Mechanics, head of the department to which I was attached. He now sat at my right, and we speedily became great friends, a fact which was shortly to play an important part in my life and in the history of the whole planet. It was on his recommendation that I had been assigned to his department by the Minister of Work. Time sped rapidly during the succeeding days. My duties, which consisted in machine design, were interesting, though a bit out of my line. Of the twelve parths which make up a Porovian day, about four were required for sleep, and only two for work, thus leaving six, the equivalent of nearly twelve earth hours, for meals and recreation. Recreation is the chief vocation of Cupia, and is conducted under the direction of the Minister of Play, who is the most important member of the king’s cabinet. I was duly assigned to a “hundred” (_i.e._ athletic club) consisting of one hundred and forty-seven members, under the leadership of an elective pootah, assisted by two bar-pootahs. The hundreds are grouped together by twelves, into thousands, each led by an elective eklat; and so the grouping continues on the analogy of the defunct armies of the Cupian nations which existed prior to the great war of the Formian conquest. As I have already intimated, a similar organization obtains in the imperial air navy of the ant-men.