The furniture was ideally suitable, good, and elegant, but the pictures on the walls, like many others which I had seen lately, amused me not a little. It seemed to me at first that they were all out of perspective, and that neither walking biped, running quadruped, nor flying bird was painted aright. By-and-bye, however, I got more used to these pictorial oddities, and caught myself thinking that when I got home again, I should be wanting to introduce some of these Muybridgeian notions into my own rooms. The fire cast a comfortable glow on all around, making it difficult to believe that the problem of fuel for the future was now definitely settled, and that electricity could now and henceforth be made to supply the necessary fuel for warming, lighting, cooking, and manufacturing purposes. No dirt or dust from ashes, and no discoloration as the result of burning gas was here felt, for neither the one nor the other were now in use. Both had served humanity well in their day. Both were now superseded by a much more efficient, cleanly, and convenient agent. After our very appetising evening meal had been despatched; I was taken on a tour of inspection round the building, or, rather, round such parts of it as were public to all the tenants. The basement consisted entirely of shops, which were connected by means of telephones with every suite in the block, and could, with the aid of electric lifts, supply anything ordered per telephone at a moment’s notice. Nor was there any fear of extortionate charges, or a poor sample of goods, since everything had to be priced according to the day’s Government scale, and the daily visits of Government inspectors ensured the withdrawal of inferior or unwholesome articles. While conversing on telephonic subjects, I mentioned that even in my benighted country we had made good use of this valuable invention. “There are even telephones attached to churches and theatres,” I said, “by means of which a sermon or a song may be heard at great distances from the places in which they are delivered. But of course you have even improved upon these notions?” “I think we have,” smiled Mrs. Saville. “Some hundreds of years ago there was hardly a building in New Amazonia which was not a perfect network of telephones and patent lifts, and our people began to give the Mother considerable anxiety, for they showed rapid signs of deterioration. On looking round for the causes of this unfortunate falling back, it was found to be produced by the mania for saving labour and exercise of every possible sort, and drastic measures were speedily introduced. “Many of the lifts were abolished, and substantial staircases erected in their stead, up and down which the people were expected to walk when going in or out. The goods lifts were, however, not considered too provocative of laziness and inactivity, and still remain very useful adjuncts to civilization.