During that time I was examined incessantly on every detail of the civilisation from which I came. I defended it as best I might, and I explained it where I was able. But I found that I knew few things thoroughly, and my explanations halted continually. I met a readier understanding of social life from creatures which were more after my own kind than had been possible to the Amphibian mind, but I was still vexed by the contempt with which my race was regarded. I reflected that the antipathy which we feel for anything which is different from our own customs might be theirs also, and that they might be less than fair to us in consequence. Brief as our own lives are, we know that many of us live too long to remain in harmony with the changes which a generation brings. I could not see that their own methods of life were as far advanced as they thought them. Yet the reactions of their minds will not leave me as they learnt of the filth of our polluted rivers, and the pall of our blinded skies. I must still see, as they saw them, the pity of our neglected land, the folly that leaves our fields half barren while the shadow of starvation is but ten years distant, the foulness of our congested cities, the insane worship of movement which leaves its thousands slain or maimed unpitied in our bloody streets.... But to write of these things in detail would be to begin a book when it is time for the ending. I lost the count of days, and the time came unlooked for when the year was over.... CHAPTER XVI RETURN “Danby,” I said, “you might fetch me an overcoat.” Having been provided with this useful garment, I sat once more at the familiar fireside. I looked at the clock, which had indicated three minutes after eight when I had shaken hands with the Professor, with a disliked solemnity, before I commenced the experiment. The hand was now at seven minutes after the hour. I had noticed a lump of half-burnt coal that had poised perilously over the top bar of the grate as I had risen to leave them. It broke now, as I gazed, and fell noisily into the ashpan. Yes,--it was the same fire,--the same night. It would be no use to tell them. And yet I saw that they were impatient for me to begin, but how could I? How could I expect them to believe?--And so much was beyond the reach of words to tell it. “Did you find them?” said the Professor, with a note of suppressed anxiety in his voice which would have been less surprising from one of the others, and which reminded me that the question was not merely of my own adventures. I realised the different values of that room from those of the world that I had left behind (or before) me. “I’m afraid you won’t see them again,” I answered, “Templeton is dead. Brett is insane, and can’t live much longer. They are torturing him horribly. At least, I don’t know whether that is a fair word. He enjoys being tortured.”