"It was noisy and bad and we grew aweary of it," said he that wore corduroy trousers. "We are not what we appear." They were taking up Picadilly altogether. AFTER THE FIRE When that happened which had been so long in happening and the world hit a black, uncharted star, certain tremendous creatures out of some other world came peering among the cinders to see if there were anything there that it were worth while to remember. They spoke of the great things that the world was known to have had; they mentioned the mammoth. And presently they saw man's temples, silent and windowless, staring like empty skulls. "Some great thing has been here," one said, "in these huge places." "It was the mammoth," said one. "Something greater than he," said another. And then they found that the greatest thing in the world had been the dreams of man. THE CITY In time as well as space my fancy roams far from here. It led me once to the edge of certain cliffs that were low and red and rose up out of a desert: a little way off in the desert there was a city. It was evening, and I sat and watched the city. Presently I saw men by threes and fours come softly stealing out of that city's gate to the number of about twenty. I heard the hum of men's voices speaking at evening. "It is well they are gone," they said. "It is well they are gone. We can do business now. It is well they are gone." And the men that had left the city sped away over the sand and so passed into the twilight. "Who are these men?" I said to my glittering leader. "The poets," my fancy answered. "The poets and artists." "Why do they steal away?" I said to him. "And why are the people glad that they have gone?" He said: "It must be some doom that is going to fall on the city, something has warned them and they have stolen away. Nothing may warn the people." I heard the wrangling voices, glad with commerce, rise up from the city. And then I also departed, for there was an ominous look on the face of the sky. And only a thousand years later I passed that way, and there was nothing, even among the weeds, of what had been that city. THE FOOD OF DEATH Death was sick. But they brought him bread that the modern bakers make, whitened with alum, and the tinned meats of Chicago, with a pinch of our modern substitute for salt. They carried him into the dining-room of a great hotel (in that close atmosphere Death breathed more freely), and there they gave him their cheap Indian tea. They brought him a bottle of wine that they called champagne. Death drank it up. They brought a newspaper and looked up the patent medicines; they gave him the foods that it recommended for invalids, and a little medicine as prescribed in the paper. They gave him some milk and borax, such as children drink in England. Death arose ravening, strong, and strode again through the cities. THE LONELY IDOL I had from a friend an old outlandish stone, a little swine-faced idol to whom no one prayed.