[Illustration: ... By degrees it lengthened until it seemed a long jet of water shot horizontally out of some colossal hose. Intensely white, with the whiteness of foam and edges blurred with spray, it went hurtling with the impetuosity and swiftness of an arrow from the nozzle of a gigantic pipe, a plunging outward hundreds of yards in a graceful parabola and giving rise to the River.] * * * * * CHAPTER XXIII Xanocles As an accredited citizen of Atlantis, I was assigned to permanent lodgings immediately after returning to Archeon. The housing representative of the Atlantean government (the only substitute in the Sunken World for our “realtors”) accompanied me on a leisurely tour of the city, allowing me my choice of not less than fifteen or twenty apartments. The task of selection was by no means easy, not because it was hard to secure suitable quarters but because it was difficult to choose among so many desirable places. Never before had I realized how utterly superior the Atlantean homes were to our own--out of all the houses I visited, there was not one that was not separated by wide spaces from its neighbors, or that did not enjoy a full share of air and light, or that did not look comfortable and alluring. The grim and musty interiors of many of our own dwellings, the furniture-littered rooms, the glaring bad taste of gilt and tinsel chairs and adornments, found no parallel among the Atlantean residences I visited. Instead, each apartment was so artlessly inviting that I might have claimed it at once as my home. The distinguishing feature of most of the Atlantean houses was a central court that reminded me of the dwellings of the ancient world. Usually the court was square or rectangular in shape, though in some instances it was hexagonal or round; and more often than not it was completely enclosed. Some of the courts were surrounded by stalwart columns, but the majority were plain. Some had walls of granite, some of marble, some of a peculiar bluish stone that I could not recognize; some were marked by spangled fountains, some by flower-gardens, some by swimming pools; and the most distinctive of all was arranged as an art gallery, with a dominating statue in the center and paintings hung at intervals along the sides. But whatever the particular contents of the court, it was certain to be accessible by four or five doors leading into the several apartments.