MR. FILK. Well, I didn't like to say so before; but that's been _my_ view all along! MR. BALCH. And mine. MR. SIBB. Now perhaps you understand why we'd rather leave it to you to give him the arm-chair. MR. COCKCR. I give a man an arm-chair for bringing disgrace on the 'ole of Jerrymere! I'd sooner break it up for firewood! Whoever it was that first started all this tomfoolery about a testimonial, I'm not going to 'ave _my_ name associated with it, and if you'll take _my_ advice, you'll drop it once and for all, for it's only making yourselves ridiculous! [_His companions, observing that he is in a somewhat excited condition, consider it advisable to change the subject._ [Illustration] THE MODEL DEMOCRACY. "I think you left directions that you were to be thawed in 199-- precisely?" said the stranger politely. "Allow me to introduce myself--NUMBER SEVEN MILLION AND SIX. If you feel equal to the effort, and would care to see the vast improvements in our social condition since the close of the benighted Nineteenth Century, I shall be pleased to conduct you." MR. PUNCH then began to realise that he had had himself frozen by a patent process just a hundred years ago, and that he had returned to animation in time for the close of the marvellous Twentieth Century; so he prepared, in much curiosity and excitement, to accompany his guide. "By the way," observed the latter, "you must not be annoyed if your--hem--habiliments, which we are unaccustomed to nowadays, should attract some attention." Singularly enough, MR. PUNCH had just begun to feel a certain embarrassment at the prospect of being seen in Piccadilly or Regent Street in the company of a person attired in grey cellular pyjamas, a drab blanket, and a glazed pot hat. However, on reaching the street, he found that every man he met was similarly clad, while his own costume--which, in his original century, would only have been remarkable for its unimpeachable taste--was, in this, the subject of universal and invidious comment. "You'll have your regulation pot hat and pyjamas served out to you in time!" said MR. SEVEN MILLION AND SIX encouragingly. "Then no one will say anything to you. In these days we resent anything that tends to confer an artificial distinction on any man. Surnames, for example, which occasionally suggested superiority of birth, have long been abolished, and official numbers substituted. You seem to be looking for something you do not see?" he added, noting a certain blankness and disappointment in MR. PUNCH'S expressive countenance. "I was only wondering why I saw no signs of any new and marvellous inventions at present," said MR. PUNCH. "I rather expected to see the air full of electric trains, manageable balloons, or coveys of citizens darting about on mechanical pinions. But I see none, and even more people go on foot than in my own time."