He shook his head and looked at me whimsically. “We have had nine for at least twenty years,” he said. “Mull, below red, and glow, above violet; what our ancestors called ultra-violet and believed to be invisible, though it was staring them in the face everywhere all the time. There used to be a theory that the color sense has developed with civilization. Don’t make any reference to that color-blindness of yours, Arnold,” he continued, after a brief pause. It occurred to me that he had not explained the choice of this color, though he had named it. “Here is the Bureau of Statistics,” he went on, as we traveled past another of the interminable buildings. “This is the Bureau of Prints and Indexes; there are more than a thousand million records within. This is the Bureau of Economics; this of Pedigrees and Relationships; this of Defective Germ-Plasm; and this is our Sixth District School.” The streets were scrupulously clean; they occupied only the central part of the space between the fronts of the buildings, that which would have been called the pavement formerly, being used as resting and lounging places. “Here is our district store,” he added. “Would you like to look inside?” I assented, and we stepped off the moving portion of the street into an open space surrounded by telephone funnels, at which small groups of men and women were listening. As he halted, a loud voice began calling: “Latest news! Rain is expected. Don’t forget Freedom Day! Muster for your amusement in Picnic Park, or the Council will make it hot for you! The escaped defectives all caught and sent to the leathers. A foreign spy captured this morning after a desperate resistance and now under guard. The miserable defective has confessed, involving numerous others. He is a low-class brach and a filthy degenerate. Boss Lembken is on the job. Praise him!” “Hurrah!” shouted the mob. “Come,” said David, plucking me by the sleeve. It was only then I realized that the reference was to me. I must have uttered an indignant exclamation, for he drew me away hurriedly. “Hush! You must keep your tongue guarded in public,” he whispered. “One can hear at both ends of the telephone.” “But it is a lie!” I said indignantly. “Who can spread such news as that, and why?” I noticed that one or two people were watching me curiously. Then, glancing up, I was amazed to see my face outlined upon a screen beneath a hood that formed a dark circle around it. It was an execrable caricature, designed to arouse hate and contempt; and yet the likeness was plainly discernible. Somehow David got me away. “It will be all right,” he kept repeating. “It doesn’t mean anything. See, here is our store.” Bewildered, I allowed him to lead me toward the entrance of a large building, before which a woman sat within a cage of crystal. “Change pieces!” she cried at intervals, in a high-pitched voice. “Change pieces or show brasses!”