In Caverns Below

CHAPTER XVIII

Mishap Upon Mishap

It is impossible to say how long I lay there cramped in the gloom. It may have been only minutes, but it seemed hours, while the howls and wailings of the rabble came to my ears through the thin slit of iron that saved me from their fury. "This way! No, that way! No, you fools, the other way!" I heard them shrilling in their confusion, as their feet went scampering in a hundred directions. "Catch him! Catch him! Don't let the villain get away! We'll teach him; we'll teach him! We'll make mincemeat of the devil!" And then, more sinister still, I heard someone exclaiming, "Hey, boys, got the rope?... Knot it tight there!..."

At these words I felt an intense desire to creep farther down into my hiding place, but was unable to do so. My feet were resting on a ledge only a foot or two wide, and beneath me vacancy seemed to yawn. I felt sure that I was on the brink of a precipice, for a pebble or fragment of metal, accidentally dislodged by my foot, rattled for a long while as it descended. Meantime I was in as uncomfortable a position as one could imagine; huddled against the iron most awkwardly while a chilly breath of air continually blew over me. I was not only catching cold, but—much worse—had reason to fear that I might sneeze at any moment, so betraying my hiding-place.

At last, however, the tumult of the multitude subsided, and I could hear the shouting of my pursuers at a distance, and then at a farther distance, and then die out entirely ... so that I knew, to my enormous relief, that they had gone off on the wrong scent.

Even so, it did not seem safe to lift the iron lid as yet—who knew what member of the mob might not be lurking about? And so I remained crouched there in the darkness, waiting, waiting....

But I had delayed too long. After a while, I again heard the sound of voices, of voices lifted in loud excitement. Were my pursuers returning? Not so! As I held my breath and listened, I recognized that these were different voices. "The ventilation! What's happened to the ventilation?" I could hear one of the newcomers crying. "Something must have blocked it! It's not been working right!"

"Been out of gear half an hour, at least!" returned another. "They say the disturbance centers somewhere up this way!"

"Hard to tell where the trouble is!" grumbled a third. "Complaints coming in for miles around!"

"Well, if anything got into one of those pipes," declared the first, "it would stop the air currents over the whole district!"

As I listened to this conversation, a thrill of horror and a sense of guilt shot over me. All too well I understood what was blocking the ventilation!

"Remember that last time!" continued one of the men. "Some big rats got caught in one of the tubes! We had to shoot in some Mulflar, and blow them to cinders!"

By this time the men were almost directly above me, and I was fervently praying for them to pass on without suspecting my presence. But such, alas!—was not to be. Just as the heavy feet of the foremost rattled on the iron lid above my head, I was overwhelmed by the desire to sneeze. The impulse came so suddenly that it was impossible to check; the best I could do was to muffle it, so that it had a stifled sound not at all like a sneeze—though still, unfortunately, all too audible.

I could hear the men pausing just above my head, with surprised exclamations. I knew that they were listening, waiting; I could almost feel their attention focused in my direction.

"What's that?" one of them snapped. "Didn't it sound like a rat?"

"Sure enough!" cried another. "A rat! That's what's stuffed up the ventilation!"

"Most likely a whole colony of rats!" added a fourth. "They grow big down here, you know!"

"And here's the very place!" took up the first. "Right in this air-tube! Well, we'll fix them all right!" And I could hear the man rattling at the iron lid above my head.

Never before had I wished so ardently for the power of invisibility. Never had I had such a desire to compress myself to a thimble's size. Hopelessly I huddled against my iron ledge; then, fearing that I would be seen, I resorted to the desperate expedient of hanging over the brim, holding on to the ledge with both hands, while my body lay along an iron surface sloping at an angle of forty-five degrees.

No sooner had I gained this position than I heard the lid heavily clanging out of place; and a flood of light burst upon me. In the glare above, several chalk-faces were staring down at me!

"There it is! A big rat! A mighty big one! One of the biggest I ever saw!" exclaimed one of the men, in awed tones.

Evidently, because of their inability to see things near at hand, they had mistaken me for a rodent!

"Well, we'll get rid of him fast enough!" a second man declared. "Just one minute there! Let me have that brush! I'll spray him with poison!"

It had never occurred to me, until that moment, to have any sympathy with a trapped rat. But I could feel boundless sympathy as a huge brush, malodorous with some vile-smelling concoction, was thrust through the opening directly at my face.

I do not know whether I cried out in my terror. But I do know that my hands, as I struggled to evade that foul oncoming weapon, lost their precarious grip on the ledge. And, the next instant, I had gone shooting off into the darkness.

To this day, I believe that it is a miracle that I survived. Certainly, the gods of good fortune were with me in the ensuing plunge. I could easily have broken my head or caved in my ribs against the steel projections of the ventilating system. Only sheer lucky chance, and the fact that the ventilating tubes were not perpendicular, saved me from what, in the words of the natives, would have been a sudden and horrible "turnover." Down, down, down, I shot, skimming around curves, banging against unseen bends and corners, tumbling head over heels in a mad dash, wherein it was impossible to regain my balance. Surely, no circus performer ever took so strange, so perilous a dive! Only now and then could I momentarily check my speed, when the tube, for a few feet, became almost horizontal; but always it would dip sharply again, and I would go falling once more through the darkness.

It seemed that I had traveled thus for miles when suddenly, with a terrific bang, I collided with a wall, and came to a halt, stunned, bruised, and bleeding in fifty places. With painful difficulty, I picked myself up, while noting with relief a slit of light through the partition I had just struck. It was, in fact, not a wall at all, but a partly opened door!

Then, as my dazed senses gradually cleared, I became aware of something familiar in my surroundings. Did this not resemble the ventilating duct, which opened on the office where I had worked, and which I had so disliked to clean with a mop?

Still feeling somewhat dizzy, I crept out of the doorway and found myself in a large, well-lighted chamber—not, indeed, my former place of employment, but so similar that I knew it to be another office of the Ventilation Company.

Before I had had time to reflect on my plight, or wonder what next to do, I was startled to see four or five men who, drawn by the noise of my arrival, came rushing out of several adjoining rooms.

Upon seeing me, they stopped short with loud, excited cries, whose import I could not quite gather. I only knew that they were employees of the Ventilation Company; that they were pointing in much agitation to my pitiful self, with my torn clothes and blood-smeared features—and that, in another moment, they would seize me and carry me away to some new punishment.

Had I had the energy, I would have crawled back into the ventilating tube for safety. But so weak had I become that I could only fall sagging to the floor and wait despairingly while the chalk-faces drew near.

"Who in the name of Thuno Flâtum are you? Where did you come from?" demanded the foremost of the strangers, as he regarded my battered form. "You know, it's forbidden to enter the ventilating ducts!"

"Yes, I know!" I moaned. And then—I cannot say by what inspiration—I added, "I am an employee of the Company."

"Oh, an employee of the Company?" The chalk-faces stared at one another significantly, and their manner became more friendly. "Of course, that's different!"

Yet their next words struck me like a deadly shock.

"We had better go and report to the Manager!" they all decided while I sought to dissuade them with my last remaining gasp of energy. Into my mind had flashed visions of the penalty for my various breaches of duty. Well I knew that any Underworld judge would be justified, three times over, in sentencing me to the violet-ray!

But, plead as I might, the ventilating men were inexorable. "No, we must report to the Manager! The rules require it!" they insisted, as one of them set off to perform his dread duty.

This assertion was to me as the last straw. Weakened by the day's torments and by loss of blood, terrified at the thought of the ordeal that awaited me on the Manager's arrival, I could not endure this new shock; a merciful unconsciousness swept over me, numbing my pain and blurring my mind to nothingness.

CHAPTER XIX

Affliction and Triumph

Great as had been the surprises of the last few hours, still stranger events awaited me....

After swooning away in the Ventilation Office, I remained unconscious for a long while—so I was afterwards told. When I came to myself again, it was after a period of blankness, varied by nightmares in which I saw Loa bending over me solicitously, her milky face more wrinkled than ever, her fat form bulging until she resembled a monstrous dumpling. Awakening from a long-protracted dream of this character, wherein I fled down endless labyrinths in the vain attempt to elude the enchantress, I found myself in a place so mysterious that I cried out involuntarily in my bewilderment.

I was lying at full length, in a sort of bed or couch, with a sheet drawn over me up to the neck; and I was conscious that all my clothes had been removed, except for a single shirt-like covering, and that my head was swathed in bandages. To my right rose a bare wall, and above me, at a height of three or four feet, stared a blank ceiling; while to the left, across an aisle little more than a yard wide, I beheld a sight that gave me the confused impression that I was back again in the Overworld, in a Pullman car. In neat rows of berths, arranged one above the other, three tiers high, dozens of men were reclining, one to each cot, all of them buried up to the neck beneath the sheets!

Where was I? In prison? In a ward for the insane? In a death-cell, awaiting execution by some new device more terrible than the violet ray?

As these questions, and others equally frightening, rushed across my mind, I began gradually to observe other details. I saw the wires, with pulley-like attachments, which ran through minute holes in the ceiling to each of the berths and carried little rattling cars no larger than a small ink bottle; I saw the vials and tubes, filled with variously colored liquids and powders, which stood on a neatly numbered shelf just above my head; and I noted that a copper wire, attached to my left wrist, ran the length of the bed and out through an opening in the wall, and that similar wires led to each of the other berths.

Although the suspicion came to me that these might be intended for the simultaneous electrocution of us all, I was so weak and weary that even the dread of imminent death could not disturb me for long; I sank back upon a pillow composed of some straw-like substance, closed my eyes, and fell into a refreshing slumber....

From this sleep I was aroused with a start by the sound of someone talking in a voice of thunder. How my heart hammered as I awoke from that pleasant doze! How I shuddered! What chills crept up and down my spine! In my bewildered state of mind, it took me a minute to discover that there was no speaker visible, and that the voice—transmitted by radio—issued from a huge horn projecting from the ceiling behind me.

Unfortunately, I had missed the first words of the talk; but, judging from what I later heard, I believe I can reproduce it fairly accurately.

"Mechanical Hospital Number 807 QL. Third Class! It is now precisely fifteen minutes and eleven seconds after the start of the wake! Time to take your morning tonic! This you will find on the shelf above you: Number 36 A, in the blue vial. Dissolve two pellets in the distilled water which you will find in Number 36 B. Drink slowly, and finish with an ounce of the liquid in 36 C. Then recline, and return to sleep. Our next announcement will be for the mid-morning repast!"

With an uncanny suddenness, the machine snapped into silence, while the occupants of all the other berths, rising slightly out of bed, reached for the indicated vials and consumed the contents as the voice had directed. For my own part, however, I was too sick and too bewildered to seek to follow instructions; I merely sank down into bed again, thinking that if this were a hospital, certainly it was the queerest I had ever viewed.

But still stranger experiences awaited me. The very next moment I unwittingly made a blunder that led to new discoveries. Finding that the wire about my wrist irritated me, since it dug into the flesh and checked the circulation, I pulled at it viciously, and succeeded in removing it. But no sooner had I disentangled the obstruction than I was shocked by hearing a bell clanging just above my head, reminding me of a burglar-alarm. And, from the radio-speaker on the ceiling, a voice bawled reprovingly.

"The patient who has just removed his wrist-register will kindly fasten it on again. We cannot expect to cure him unless this is left securely in place. For the benefit of any persons still ignorant of the facts, we may repeat that the wrist-register is the essence of modern medicine. By means of a faint but constant electric current, it records the patient's pulse, temperature, and respiration, which are noted down in the chart-room by automatic wired connections. Thus we are aware of the patient's condition minute by minute, and are able to eliminate the necessity of expensive attendants. It is this device which has made the Mechanical Hospital possible, and has enabled Third Class Citizens to enjoy the benefits of modern medical knowledge."

As I hastily readjusted the wire, I marveled at the medical advances of the chalk-faces, who have progressed so far above us of the Overworld. None the less, how I would have welcomed the presence of a flesh-and-blood physician!

Let me now pass over the space of a few hours, during which I dozed from time to time, and from time to time took food or drugs in accordance with the radio instructions, which were constantly awakening me from the most invigorating slumbers. The next important event occurred toward the close of the "wake," when the radio announced "Visitors' Hour."

Needless to say, this announcement did net interest me at first, for who was there to see me? Who, in fact, even knew of my presence here?

Yet once again I had miscalculated. I was to receive not one visitor, but several—in fact, two distinct groups! And one group was to be more alarming than the other.

No sooner had "Visitors' Hour" begun than I heard four or five heavy pairs of feet shuffling down the aisle in my direction; and, peering out of the bed toward the newcomers, I was electrified with fright at the sight of several familiar faces. There were the very men, the employees of the Ventilation Company, who had met me yesterday after my ignominious descent, and had threatened to call the Manager. And among them—might heaven preserve me!—I noticed the tigerish face of the Manager himself!

Only on one other occasion—when I had begun work in the Ventilation Office—had I encountered this individual, who answered to the name of Go Grabl. But never could I forget the occasion; he had insisted so severely on my duties to the Company, and had pointed out the penalties for violation of the rules so explicitly, that I had thought of him somewhat as the small boy thinks of the rod-wielding pedagogue.

And now here he was, cornering me where I was not able to escape him! Could he not at least wait until I was well?

Shuddering, I turned my face toward the wall, so as to shut out the sight of the intruder. But all to no avail! I heard him, along with the other men, halting opposite my berth; and I could not but catch the tones of their conversation.

"There he is!" exclaimed the first of the visitors; and I could imagine with what contempt he pointed to me. "All beaten up and abraded from knocking about inside the tube!"

"No wonder!" declared a second. "He must have gone through at least two miles of pipe!"

"When did you say he would be well again?" I heard the powerful voice of the Manager. "Naturally, we can do nothing until then!"

"They say he'll be out in a few wakes," returned the first. "Only suffering from shock, along with surface scratches and bruises."

"Good!" bawled the Manager. "It would be awkward if he had been turned over!"

Oh, would these men never go away and leave me in peace? In despair, I turned toward them, and opened my mouth to speak. Alas!—they would not let me get a word in edgeways!

But what was this that they were saying? Could I believe my ears? Or was I only dreaming?

"It was a wonderful performance," one of the ventilating employees was declaring. "Yes, a wonderful performance! Personally, I never saw anything like it. To creep for miles through the ventilation tubes, all the way from his office to ours! To dust them out and brush away all obstructions, at the risk of his life! Why, I assure you, Go Grabl, it was heroism! We were all dumbfounded! The best of it was he succeeded! He repaired the ventilation! From the moment he left the duct, the air currents were working properly again!"

Could it be that I was not dreaming, after all?

"Such modesty I never saw before!" a second employee was relating. "Can you believe it, Go Grabl, when we promised to report the affair to you, he tried to dissuade us! He seemed positively eager not to take the credit!"

"Such self-effacement," rang out the heavy voice of the Manager, "is much to the credit of any worker! It is the ideal that the Company demands! We will not forget such devoted service!"

And then, nodding to me with a smile, while I vainly strove to get in a word at last, he counseled, "Quiet there, my good man, quiet! In your condition, it is best not to speak; you need all your energy to get well. But I want you to know that your heroic deeds will not be soon forgotten. You will be rewarded, my dear man, you will be rewarded. And now, good-bye! Good-bye!"

"Good-bye! Good-bye!" echoed the other ventilation employees, and all bowed low to do me honor.

Spellbound, I had no word to say; but as they filed off down the aisle, I could hear the Manager's pleased voice.

"We will report this exploit in our monthly Company booklet, as an example to all our workers! It will live in the annals of the Company; yes, it will live in the annals of the Company!"

While I was wondering if they were crazy or I, I heard heavy footsteps thumping toward me along the aisle and glanced out of bed to receive a new shock.

Waddling forward as fast as her corpulent form would permit, and with an ingratiating smile on her wrinkled face, was none other than Loa! And behind her, benignantly beaming, loomed her father, Professor Tan Trum!

"Well, well, well, my boy!" rattled the latter, as he made his way toward my berth. "Here you are at last! We have been waiting for you in the reception room a full hour—a full hour, by my watch! They are not very courteous in these Third Class hospitals! But Loa wanted to come—so here we are! It would hardly be proper to let a respectable girl come alone to such quarters," he finished, as he surveyed the three tiers of berths with a disapproving sniff of his uptilted nose.

"Oh, my dear, my dear, I'm so glad we've come!" enthused Loa, scarcely waiting for her father to end. "We've heard all about it! The Wakely Screamer tells the story in headlines! It even has pictures, showing how you climbed up the Ventilation Tube! How brave you were, my dear! How very brave! It makes me feel so honored to know—well, to know that I can call such a man my very own!"

And she reached out her capacious arms as if to enfold me—with the result that I felt ready to swoon again.

"You can't imagine how nervous I was about you last night, my dear, when you didn't come home!" continued Loa, in a fluent stream. "I was afraid you were lost! But father—father here wasn't worried. He was so absorbed in his researches into the antiquity of the hyphen, he only growled and said, what if you did get lost? The streets are as safe as our own home! But I didn't get a wink of sleep—not one wink!—until I read the news in the Screamer. Now, of course, I understand why you didn't come back!"

No defeated general, suddenly realizing that his most carefully laid strategy has failed, could have had a more bitter sinking sensation than overcame me at that moment. Evidently Loa and her father had not even guessed that I had run away!

"My dear boy," the Professor continued, still glancing disparagingly about the room, "what a miserable rat-hole they've given you to sleep in! You can't remain here! We'll arrange to take you back home immediately!"

"Yes, of course, we'll arrange immediately!" coincided Loa, beaming upon me with a devouring smile. "You poor dear! We'll give you better treatment! I'll take care of you myself!"

Overwhelmed at this idea, I opened my mouth to protest; but the words stuck in my throat and would not come. Instead, I uttered something halfway between a gasp and a sob.

"No, no, dear, don't exert yourself!" urged Loa. "Don't thank us yet! You're still too weak to speak! But we'll see the authorities—and have all the arrangements made."

The truth is that I was too weak to speak—much too weak! As Professor Tan Trum nodded good-bye and disappeared along the aisle, followed by his daughter, who smiled at me in the most infatuated way imaginable, I relapsed momentarily into a state of coma, from which I was a long while in recovering.

It is doubtful if I would have recuperated at all, in less than several "wakes," had it not been for a message that came to me an hour or two later, sealed in an envelope that shot to my bedside through a pneumatic tube. This was so unexpected, and so heartening, that it helped me more than all the hospital tonics, and even enabled me, for a time, to drive away the dread vision of Loa.

The letter, written on the embossed stationery of the Ventilation Company, ran as follows:

It is from my appointment as Ventilating Inspector that I date the beginning of my phenomenal rise in the affairs of the Underworld.

CHAPTER XX

Ordeal and Crisis

For seven "wakes" I remained in the hospital. Even though I did not at all like the place, with its automatic service and its total absence of living attendants, still I lived in hourly dread of being removed and sent back to Professor Tan Trum's home. I knew that, true to his word, he had put in an application to have me taken out; but what I did not know was that a thousand formalities had to be observed before the application could be granted. There were blanks to fill out, and signatures to secure, and affidavits to sign, and fees to pay, and half a score of clerks to affix their approval; hence, while Tan Trum and Loa were doing their frantic best to obtain the release permit, the "wakes" continued to slip past, and I remained in the hospital. In the course of time, indeed, Tan Trum's application was duly approved—but not before I had already been discharged as cured.

It is a testimony to a naturally strong constitution that I was able to escape in seven "wakes"; for my worries and torments while in that hospital were innumerable.... I shall not describe them all; let me only say that the newspaper reporters alone were enough to give me a daily attack of chills and fever. The gentlemen of the press, thanks to the special privileges of their profession, did not confine themselves to "Visitors' Hour"; at any time of the day or night they would rouse me from pleasant slumbers, in order to secure my personal story for the Wakely Blare, or in order to learn my views on the topics of the day, such as the reasons for the peculiar charms of the women of Wu, or the desirability of improving men's clothing styles by further enlarging the V-slit on the back.

Naturally, I was irritated by such questions, and persistently refused to reply, for I did not see how my work for the Ventilation Company qualified me to express myself on native fashions, feminine beauty, or politics. The reporters, however, seemed to feel otherwise; and, in no way discouraged by my failure to speak, they were so obliging as to make my opinions for me when I would not mention them myself. Thus, I was later shown long articles in which I was described as "speaking volubly," and in which I read the views credited to me on subjects so diverse as "The Merits of Thuno Flâtum," "The Natural Superiority of Wu to Zu," "The Future of the Scootscoot," "Why I Am in Love With Wrinkles," etc.

It was with intense misgivings that I awaited my release, for how now avert the day of reckoning? How save myself from the fatal necessity of returning to Tan Trum's home? Luckily, this problem was solved for me by the Ventilation Company. Upon presenting myself for work, I was informed that the Company provided living quarters for its Inspectors in a great dormitory, so that they might be subject to call at any hour. While it was not compulsory to reside there, I had not the least hesitation about my course. I hastily dictated a letter to Tan Trum and his daughter, thanking them for past favors, but assuring them that, "much to my regret, the exigencies of my new work make it impossible for me to continue to accept your hospitality." I also promised that, as soon as I was able, I would pay back the sum I owed Tan Trum.

Unhappily, this was not the last I was to see of the Professor, nor of the Professor's daughter. But before reporting my next encounter with them, let me tell of my new duties for the Ventilation Company.

As was to be expected, in view of the doubling of my salary, my new labors were much less exacting than the old. It was my duty to travel from place to place, inspecting the ventilating tubes and outlets, and removing obstructions (this being assumed to be my specialty); and in order to accomplish this task, wherein I was pretty much my own master, I had to ride one of the Company-owned little vehicles, or "scootscoots," which I so intensely loathed. However, I found it easy enough to run the machine, whose driving mechanism, which was guaranteed as "moron-proof," was as simple as that of an elevator. But I was never able to balance myself on it cross-legged with the native ease, which came only of long practice; nor could I ever quite master my dread of an early and sudden "turnover," for I constantly observed collisions on all main thoroughfares; and since there were no traffic rules, speeding drivers shooting recklessly at one in all directions, survival was a matter of sheer good luck.

But by taking roundabout ways and choosing the less frequented thoroughfares, I succeeded in reducing the risk, till I estimated that I was about as safe as a voyager through a submarine zone in wartime, or a lone transoceanic aviator. So fortunate was I, indeed, that in the first few months I only suffered half a dozen minor mishaps. Except for some bruises on the head and shoulders, an abrasioned knee and a sprained wrist, I might be said to have escaped unscathed.

In the course of my new activities, I had an opportunity to inspect the ventilation in all its details, learning by precisely what system of motors, pumps, valves, and pipes the fresh air was forced down from the Overworld and distributed throughout Wu, somewhat as the lungs distribute oxygen to the body. Being an engineer not only by profession but by inclination, I made a more careful study of the details than duty required, until I had mastered the facts as a watchmaker masters the mechanism of a clock. But as yet I had no thought beyond my own natural mechanical interests, and had no anticipation of the striking part my newly acquired knowledge was to play.

It did, indeed, occur to me that, by exploring the ventilating connections with the outer world, I might find a way to escape from Wu. But, remembering my harrowing experiences on my first attempt at escape and knowing that a second attempt might not end so fortunately, I decided to bide my time and make no rash or premature dash for freedom.

Had it not been for one fact, I should have found life as Ventilating Inspector almost pleasant. The fly in the ointment was the menace of Loa. I use the word "menace" advisedly, for this is what it seemed to me. Not even by removing to the Ventilation Dormitory could I relieve myself of her attentions! Of course, I scrupulously avoided her whenever possible—but this proved to avail me little. Before I had been working in my new position for ten "wakes," disconcerting rumors began to reach my ears.

"Well, partner," another Inspector exclaimed one day, slapping me on the back with comradely good humor, "we hear you're in luck! Say, invite us to the wedding, won't you? How did you ever find such a lovely girl? So fat and wrinkled, they say! And the daughter of a Second Class professor! Congratulations! May you have fourteen sons, to provide a glorious turnover for our country!"

Naturally I grew indignant at these words, and strenuously denied having matrimonial intentions. But my companions smiled knowingly, nudged one another, and protested, "Oh, you can't fool us! We know! We know! The rumor is everywhere about! You've been engaged for wakes and wakes! Why, the Screamer announced it issue before last!"

"The Screamer—announced it?" I gasped.

"Of course! Can't keep it secret any longer, partner!"

In despair, I sank down upon a seat, my face buried in my hands, my spirit a prey to the darkest melancholy. Apparently everyone was bent on forcing me into a union with Loa!

Meanwhile the girl herself went her way in the blithe assurance that our nuptials would soon be celebrated. Only one "wake" after the ventilating employees mentioned the article in the Screamer, Loa herself visited me in the company of her father.

As they announced themselves unceremoniously into my rooms in the dormitory, they succeeded in cornering me beyond hope of escape.

I noticed that Loa, as she entered, was pouting a little, and was eyeing me reproachfully, and for a moment the wild hope came to me that perhaps she was angry, and had come to release me from the entanglement.

No such optimism, however, was justified. "Why haven't you come to see me all this time, dear?" she began, somewhat accusingly, but in a manner that showed her willingness to be forgiving.

"Now, Loa darling," remonstrated the Professor, "haven't I told you a thousand times that it isn't becoming for a Third Class man to call on a Second Class lady?—no, not even when they're engaged! So, of course, Loa, you must come to him instead. He has a right to feel offended at your neglect."

But I confessed to feeling no offense, and Loa, her resentment quickly dissipated, advanced toward me with a smile.

"See, dear, what I have for you," she announced, taking a little gleaming object from her handbag. "It's all yours! Your wedding ring!"

"My wedding ring?" I ejaculated, feeling ready to sink through the floor.

"Of course," she declared. "Don't you know it's the custom for the lady to give the gentleman a ring?"

"Now, Loa, how could you expect him to know?" demanded Tan Trum reprovingly. "After all, he was born a barbarian, and still isn't familiar with civilized ways."

"Yes, I had forgotten," admitted Loa, apologetically. "Here, dear, is the ring!" And while I sank down in consternation, wishing to fight off the gift but not knowing how to refuse, she slipped a little ruby-studded silver band onto the small finger of my left hand.

"There, dear!" she went on rapturously. "Isn't it beautiful? It's ruby, the color of your heart's blood!"

I mumbled something, expressive neither of thanks nor of appreciation, but apparently my hearers did not quite catch my words. As I snatched at the ring, with the idea of removing it, I was diverted from my purpose by feeling Loa's arms about my neck, and for a moment we were locked in an embrace more satisfying, I hope, to her than to me.

It was Professor Tan Trum who, at this point, unwittingly saved the day.

"Here, my dears," he said, unfolding an enormous document with a silver seal. "Here, my dears, is the license! There are only a few minor details to be filled out."

I do not know why, but some strange, irrational hope flashed into my heart at sight of that document.

Yet as I glanced over the paper, I saw very little to inspire hope. I read that, as my one and only legal wife, I guaranteed to take, Loa, the daughter of Professor Tan Trum; that I agreed to obey the Population Laws and produce as many sons as possible for the benefit of the Fatherland; and that I promised to rear my children and conduct my own married life according to the best accepted principles of Thoughtlessness. At the bottom of the page, I noticed, there was a space for a notary's signature, which had not yet been filled out; and under Loa's name I read, written elaborately in gilded letters, "Eugenically approved!"; while beneath my own name no such inscription appeared.

As delicately as I could, I called this fact to the attention of Professor Tan Trum. But he, as if bent on destroying my last remaining shred of hope, answered me.

"Oh, my dear boy, don't let that worry you! Don't let that worry you at all! A mere formality, I assure you! A fine, stalwart man like you—even if you were born a barbarian—won't have any trouble meeting eugenic requirements. Not the least. In fact, I'm determined to clear away this last technical obstacle at once. So I've a little surprise for you. I've brought the Eugenics Inspector here with us. He's waiting right now in the gallery!"

While I gave a horrified gasp, the Professor went to the door, flung it open, and called to someone outside. And immediately a rat-faced little runt of a native, whose tall pointed hat bore an engraved steel sign, "Eugenics!" entered and bowed low. "Is this the bridegroom?" he inquired, pointing at me.

"Yes, yes," acknowledged the Professor. "Come right this way! My daughter and I will withdraw, leaving you to perform the tests by yourself. We will be waiting outside."

Since there was no choice in the matter, I had to agree to the ordeal. And the Inspector, who declared himself to be a practicing physician, put me through a severe examination, in which he tested my heart, my lungs, and all my other organs by means of a wonderful little instrument which, upon being placed on the skin, immediately registered any pathological condition, by recording the exceedingly faint electrical reactions of the body.

But alas!—he could find nothing wrong with me! "My dear young man," he congratulated me at the conclusion of the test, "you bewilder me! It is rarely that I have come across so perfect a case! I will rate you 99 and 44/100 per cent! From the point of view of Eugenics, you are Grade A!"

Probably the Inspector did not understand why I looked so downcast at this pronouncement, and why I begged, almost forlornly, "But is there no other test? You're sure you can't disqualify me?"

"Have no fear!" he assured me.

And then, glancing at a little document across the room from him, he added, "To be sure, there are a few questions I must ask, in accordance with the law. But they are mere matters of form which, I am certain, will give you no trouble."

Thereupon he began to fling out scores of queries, in regard to my age, my occupation, my father's age, my mother's age, the age of my sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc., when they were "turned over." To all these questions, most of which struck me as utterly silly, I replied as best I could; and always the Inspector would nod with a pleased "Very good!" and congratulate me on my perfect record.

At last he had come to the final question, and inquired, in a perfunctory manner, "Military experience? Military experience of your father, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers?"

"Well," said I, not in the least anticipating the effect my words were to have, "I served among my own people in a World War, being in the Commissary Department for three months. My father never was in any war; neither were my grandfathers nor great-grandfathers, so far as I know."

Suddenly the Inspector shot out of his seat and leaped toward me as though I had confessed complicity in a crime.

"What?" he demanded. "Your family has never been to war? It has no military record at all?"

"My family were all distinguished scholars and scientists."

"Scholars and scientists?" he flung back, wrathfully. "Scholars and scientists? What do they amount to? When did they ever fight for their country? How do you expect, young man, to bring forth a capable progeny to be turned over in the next war unless you have a good fighting ancestry?"

Before this question I remained mute. The first wild surge of hope was beginning to well up in my heart.

"How do you expect, young man," repeated the Inspector, growing more irate every moment, "to bring forth a capable progeny unless you have had a good fighting ancestry? No, sir, I am sorry to say I cannot approve of you as eugenic! To permit your marriage would be to encourage the growth of an unfit, non-combatant population! I regret it very much, sir, but I must stamp your application, 'Disapproved!'"

And, with that, the Inspector made a contemptuous bow, and went stamping out of the room.

A few minutes later, after Loa had heard the news and had left my apartment with heartbroken sobs, I executed a solitary dance of joy. At last I was free, completely free! And how I blessed my father and my father's father for having had no fighting experience!

CHAPTER XXI

Strike! Strike! Strike!

The "wakes" went by and gathered into months, and the months lengthened into a year, and still I performed my duties as Ventilation Inspector, and could discover no way of escape to the Overworld, and no prospect of a change in the ordered monotony of my existence. Was I to pass my whole life thus, and to end my days among the labyrinths of Wu?

So I often asked, while wondering if it would not be wise to attempt some new dash for liberty—even though the end might be arrest and the violet ray! Then all at once, when I was just finishing my first year as Inspector, my life underwent an extraordinary change.

The occasion was one of those periodic strikes which menace the economic security of Wu and enable the people to enjoy the perils and horrors of warfare even when war has not been officially declared. On this particular occasion, the strike was especially dangerous; for those guardians of the public health, the Ventilation employees, were determined to leave work. Not, indeed, had all the Ventilation employees so resolved, but in some sections they were unanimous in their revolt, and the uprising had become so serious that Dictator Thuno Flâtum was said to have interrupted a fishing expedition for nearly an hour while he debated the situation with high officials.

Personally, I looked upon developments with gravest misgivings, for the Ventilation Brotherhood, composed of fifty thousand workers, had issued the following ultimatum:

The demands of the strikers—who were mostly Third Class citizens, of the kind that did a maximum of work for a minimum of returns—were as follows:

These demands—which were variously branded by officials of the Company as "Inordinate," "Preposterous," and "Impossible"—were condemned in no uncertain terms by all First Class citizens, who upbraided the unpatriotic attitude of the strikers and pointed out that, should their terms be met, the Ventilation Company could not guarantee to pay its stockholders more than eleven per cent a year.

"The arrogance of the people knows no limits!" stated one high dignitary, who was believed to enjoy the confidence of no less a personage than Thuno Flâtum himself. "If we were to grant these exactions, the next thing they would ask would be separate houses for each family, or Grade A air, or reduction of taxes on the food, clothing, and water of the Third Class! Doubtless they would expect the First Class, who are legally tax-exempt, to meet these bills instead! No! Obviously such insubordination must be checked before it poisons the entire life of society!"

This sentiment being echoed by First Class citizens everywhere, a battle to the finish was promised. "We will smother rather than submit!" rang out the defiance of the rulers.... "Then we will all smother together!" thundered the retort of the strikers. And already, two "wakes" before the expiration of the ultimatum, serious complications were reported; dozens of strikers, going quietly about their way bearing banners, "We demand a breathing wage!" had been shot in the back by electric bolts launched by the police, in return for what the Wakely Screamer denounced as "their treasonous and seditious interference with business."

If this were but the beginning, a civil war seemed in prospect!

Now, I personally had little interest in the strike, for my work as Ventilation Inspector was fairly easy, my wages were fairly good, and I could see no advantage in facing suffocation merely in order to improve laboring conditions. Besides, I had had the temerity to consult a historical reference work, and knew that ventilation strikes had been occurring at intervals of about thirty years for centuries, and that in every case hundreds of thousands of persons—mostly invalids, women and children, in no wise connected with the strike—had been turned over as a result of interference with the air-supply; while the strikers, if they had been permitted to return to work at all after the settlement, had done so on worse conditions than before.

For this reason, I steadily refused to join the protesting group.

As the time approached for the strikers to put their ultimatum into effect, I could see how excited the people were growing. Business had virtually come to a standstill; along avenues once crowded with dashing vehicles, the "scootscoots" had almost ceased to run; in every side-gallery one could see little knots of chalk-faces anxiously talking, their drawn features and worried eyes bearing testimony to the concern they felt. "And so you think they will really strike?" one would ask.... "Undoubtedly!" another would reply. "I stored up containers of oxygen months ago, for an emergency!"... "Oh, what will I do about the baby's air!" a third would sigh. "I'm sure there'll be a terrible turnover if this keeps up!"... "Never fear!" would be the response. "What's the army for? The government has saved it for just this occasion!"

Meanwhile, the Screamer reported that Dictator Thuno Flâtum was still enjoying his fishing expedition. He had just caught a seven-ounce minnow, it was said, which he had been able to draw out of a subterranean lake by means of a new automatic fishing reel.

At the beginning of that wake on which the ultimatum expired, I reported for work as usual to the Ventilation Office. But, to my surprise, the place was almost deserted; the dozens of regular employees were conspicuously absent; only a worn old drudge of a janitress, languidly mopping the floor, greeted me upon my arrival.

She seemed, indeed, astonished to see me. "Say!—but you are brave, young man!" she gasped. "Don't you value your life?"

"Don't I value my life?" I echoed.

"Bless me, it won't be worth much if those strikers find you!" she exclaimed, looking up from her pail of sops. "They wouldn't do anything to me, for I'm only a useless old woman. But you, sir—they'll wipe the floor with you for not joining the strike!"

"Oh, have no worry; I'm able to defend myself!"

She stared at me as if wondering whether I were a prodigy or a madman.

"Do you think so?" she shot out. "Well, then you ought to see what they did to my neighbor, young Mr. Ty Tan. He was as big and brawny a young man as you ever saw—took all the prizes in boxing and wrestling. Well, he wouldn't join the water workers when they went out year before last, and turned off our drinking supply. Poor fellow! I've always felt so sorry for him!"

"What did they do to him?"

"Poor fellow!" she reiterated. "Poor fellow! It was so foolish of him, so foolish! When Mr. Ty Tan wouldn't strike—"

Abruptly she halted. I saw her staring toward the door, an expression of surprise and fear in her eyes, while she shrank back as if from some approaching menace.

Wheeling about, I saw half a dozen ugly-looking men just entering. On their breasts were prominent banners, reading: "Ventilation Strike. Sub-committee No. 116."

With a threatening expression, the newcomers drew near. "We were just looking around, to see that no one was working!" snarled the leader, as he glared in my direction. "You know, brother, it isn't good for the health to be working nowadays."

Steadily I eyed the men, and deliberately drew a step nearer. "Is that a threat, or a challenge?" I demanded.

"Have it as you will!" he growled. "I give you a fair chance, brother, if you want to walk out of here alive—"

Already I had resolved on my course. Striding forward before the man could finish his sentence, I put my full one hundred and seventy pounds into an uppercut that caught him squarely on the point of the chin, and sent him reeling to the floor.

Not being able to see clearly close at hand, he had been unable to ward off the blow!

Even as he fell, I followed up my advantage. Being now within arm's reach of his companions, I began to rain blow upon blow, which they also, because of their defective vision for things close at hand, were unable to guard against. In less time than it takes to recount, three of the men had followed their leader to the floor; while the remaining two, not knowing what sort of a fighting tornado they had encountered, had turned and taken to their heels.

With eyes of admiration and wonder, the scrubwoman stared at me as I returned from the encounter. "If only Ty Tan could have fought like that!" she sighed. "Poor Ty! He mightn't have ended as he did!" And then, warningly, "Still, sir, I would advise you to look out. They won't let it go at that. They'll see that you're turned over, if they have to bring out a whole striking brigade."

"Let them do their worst!" I snorted. And I sat down, crossed my legs, and complacently awaited developments. I could foresee that I was to have a busy day.

CHAPTER XXII

Blows and Counter-Blows

Less than twenty minutes later, a second Striking Sub-committee arrived. Its members were eight in number, and their method of swaggering hostility was such that I had no difficulty in repeating my previous tactics. Before they realized what I was about, I had gotten too close for them to see me clearly and I aimed my blows so accurately that, in less than a minute, half the gang lay stretched upon the floor. The others, not quite realizing what had struck them, were not long in resorting to that discretion which most men prefer to valor. Dashing to the door, they leaped upon their "scootscoots," which awaited just without, and darted away with a lunatic recklessness, while I stood staring after them with an amused smile. As yet I did not suspect how tragic the occasion was to be.

While my felled opponents were staggering to their feet and retreating by a side-entrance, the sound of a frightful crash came to my ears; and, rushing out and around a bend in the gallery, I saw that a crowd had gathered, while in their midst was a shapeless mass that I could hardly recognize.

Horrified, I shielded my eyes from the sight; and only by degrees did the dread truth dawn upon me; the escaping members of the Sub-committee, in their haste, had collided with some other "scootscoots," and all four members had been "turned over."

But such incidents being of daily occurrence, I tried not to let my mind dwell upon it; and, returning to my seat in the Ventilation Office, I quietly awaited the next development.

Not being good at presaging the future, I could not have known how the news of my exploit was to spread; and how, fanned by rumor, it was to grow to gigantic proportions. As luck would have it, a reporter for the Wakely Blare, on the rampage for material, happened to be present at the scene of the collision; and though he had small idea what had happened, he had no hesitation about accepting the word of onlookers who knew as little about the affair as he did. Consequently he radioed his paper a story so good that the editor decided to make it headline material—in other words, he printed it in red ink all over the front page, while other news items were driven to footnotes on back pages.

This article—which is too long to repeat in its entirety—was to the effect that a regiment of strike-breakers had appeared, no one knew where from, under the leadership of a redoubtable giant capable of "turning over" any adversary at a blow. So tremendous was the power of this group that opponents were said to be under a fatal spell, so that even fugitives from their vengeance came to certain disaster. As proof of this fact, the paper cited the destruction of the four members of the Sub-committee—whose numbers, however, were given as fourteen....

Now the speed of the papers of Wu in printing the news is phenomenal. Thanks to automatic typesetters, which take down the articles from radio dictation, a matter of only minutes need elapse between the occurrence of an event and its appearance in print. In fact, on some occasions the news is reported in "extra-extra" and "super-extra-extra" editions even while the event is happening; it is recorded that once the Screamer, in a special "scoop"—or "raid," as the natives call it—announced the death of a high official seventeen minutes before he actually breathed his last.

Hence it is not surprising that, less than half an hour after I had routed the second Sub-committee, papers telling of the exploit were being flaunted in all the main galleries by the newsgirls (there were no newsboys, since all the boys had gone to war).

Now if truth be told, the Blare was extremely glad of the opportunity to print this story, since, like all the papers, it was owned by a group of First Class citizens, and therefore was profoundly "anti-strike," and eager to play up any account hostile to the strikers. This it was which, along with the desire for circulation—for which several newspaper proprietors had been known to commit murder—explained the prompt featuring of the article.

Even so, the effect of the article would not have been possible had it not been for one little weakness of the people of Wu. In most ways, they are not a credulous folk; indeed, one may show them a plain fact ninety-nine ways without convincing them; but when a statement is once in print, they consider it inviolable. Never would it occur to them to question any remark, once it has been subjected to the sacred art of typography. They imagine that there is a sort of magic connected with printer's ink, which abhors falsehood somewhat as water abhors fire, and in this superstition the educated seem to share along with their more ignorant brothers.

As a consequence, the rumor of my prowess, once it had attained the dignity of a place in the Blare, had taken on the sanctity of established knowledge.

In view of the fact that the circulation of the Blare was somewhere in the millions (it being prescribed as compulsory reading for all persons with a mental age of twelve or under), it was not an hour before I, along with my imagined regiment of supporters, had become a subject of discussion for all Wu. And the effect upon the strikers may well be imagined. It hit them in that vital spot, their morale, with the result that many began to hesitate whether to remain on strike, and in some districts it was reported that the men were going back to work and ventilation was being restored. Most of all, the ignorant were disturbed by that passage in the story which told of the "mysterious spell" afflicting all opponents of the new strikebreaker. As this was nothing tangible for anyone to combat, it was all the more capable of arousing the terror of the masses, who, being well grounded in all the precepts of thoughtlessness, were unable to save themselves by reason.

The consequence was such as to endanger the strike itself. The members of the Central Strike Committee, threatened with disaffection on all sides, began to fear that their movement would collapse ignominiously. Hence they took immediate measures to hit back at the source of their trouble.

It was only about two hours after the little episode between myself and the second Striking Sub-committee, and I was lounging in my chair in the Ventilation Office, finding things becoming just a little boresome. The heavy, languid air, growing hot and foul now that the ventilation had been turned off, was telling upon my nerves; I was getting anxious to go into action again and do something more to end the strike. How I would have welcomed the appearance of another Sub-committee!

But no Sub-committee called. Evidently none could be found to meet me face to face, after the tales of my prowess! Instead, I was startled to hear a rattling sound in a pneumatic tube just to my right, and to note the arrival of a letter in a little steel container, which stated: