Even though my companions felt constantly ill at ease in Atlantis, yet as the weeks went by they were becoming more proficient in the use of the native tongue and were taking their places in the life of the Sunken World. One by one they were being summoned, as I had been summoned, before the Committee on Selective Assignments; and each in turn was ordered to perform some specified daily work after taking the usual thirty days’ tour around Atlantis. Captain Gavison, as one of the most adept of all in mastering the language, was one of the first to be graduated into citizenship. But his advancement brought him no great pleasure, since his prescribed duty was to spend two and a half hours daily in a bureau engaged in compiling statistics of population and industry; and his chosen work for the State, which was to write a comparison of Atlantean and upper world civilization, gave him no end of trouble owing not only to linguistic difficulties but to his lack of training in authorship. Meanwhile Stranahan and Rawson had also matriculated into citizenship; but their assigned work differed strikingly from the Captain’s. Rawson, as a well formed and brawny youth, was permitted to exercise his muscles for an hour and a half daily in a marble quarry some miles to the north of the city; while Stranahan, who had been given his choice of several occupations, decided that it would suit him best to serve three hours daily as doorman at the Archeon City Museum. It seemed almost as if this position had been made to order for him; for when he stood at the museum entrance, robed in an official red, and politely directed visitors to the various aisles and departments, he had the dignity of one born to a lofty station. His work was not altogether easy, he assured me, for the exhibits were many and confusing, and he had difficulty in memorizing their names and positions; yet to see him as he swayed commandingly from side to side of the great arched doorway, with chest thrown well out and hands folded sedately behind him, one could scarcely have believed that he was troubled by any doubts, but might have imagined him to be the owner and creator of the building. Indeed, the interest which he took in the museum seemed to be almost personal. He summoned the whole Upper World Club to inspect it, as though it had been his own handiwork; and he directed us from gallery to gallery and from exhibit to exhibit with the serenity of perfect knowledge. And while there was much about the institution that neither he nor the rest of us could understand, yet we had him to thank for introducing us to some truly extraordinary displays.