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he knew not if Death wept out of pity for his opponent, or
because he knew that he should not have such sport again
when the old game was over and Man was gone, or whether
because perhaps, for some hidden reason, he could never
repeat on Earth his triumph over the Moon.
Taking Up Picadilly
Going down Picadilly one day and nearing Grosvenor Place I
saw, if my memory is not at fault, some workmen with their
coats off -- or so they seemed. They had pickaxes in their
hands and wore corduroy trousers and that little leather
band below the knee that goes by the astonishing name of
"York-to-London."
They seemed to be working with peculiar vehemence, so
that I stopped and asked one what they were doing.
"We are taking up Picadilly," he said to me.
"But at this time of year?" I said. "Is it usual in
June?"
"We are not what we seem," said he.
"Oh, I see," I said, "you are doing it for a joke."
"Well, not exactly that," he answered me.
"For a bet?" I said.
"Not precisely," said he.
And then I looked at the bit that they had already
picked, and though it was broad daylight over my head it was
darkness down there, all full of the southern stars.
"It was noisy and bad and we grew aweary of it," said he
that wore corduroy trousers. "We are not what we appear."
They were taking up Picadilly altogether.
After the Fire
When that happened which had been so long in happening and
the world hit a black, uncharted star, certain tremendous
creatures out of some other world came peering among the
cinders to see if there were anything there that it were
worth while to remember. They spoke of the great things
that the world was known to have had; they mentioned the
mammoth. And presently they saw man's temples, silent and
windowless, staring like empty skulls.
"Some great thing has been here," one said, "in these
huge places." "It was the mammoth," said one. "Something
greater than he," said another.
And then they found that the greatest thing in the world
had been the dreams of man.
The City
In time as well as space my fancy roams far from here. It
led me once to the edge of certain cliffs that were low and
red and rose up out of a desert: a little way off in the
desert there was a city. It was evening, and I sat and
watched the city.
Presently I saw men by threes and fours come softly
stealing out of that city's gate to the number of about
twenty. I heard the hum of men's voices speaking at
evening.
"It is well they are gone," they said. "It is well they
are gone. We can do business now. It is well they are
gone." And the men that had left the city sped away over
the sand and so passed into the twilight.
"Who are these men?" I said to my glittering leader.
"The poets," my fancy answered. "The poets and artists."
"Why do they steal away?" I said to him. "And why are
the people glad that they have gone?"
He said: "It must be some doom that is going to fall on
the city, something has warned them and they have stolen
away. Nothing may warn the people."
I heard the wrangling voices, glad with commerce, rise up
from the city. And then I also departed, for there was an
ominous look on the face of the sky.
And only a thousand years later I passed that way, and
there was nothing, even among the weeds, of what had been
that city.
The Food of Death
Death was sick. But they brought him bread that the modern
bakers make, whitened with alum, and the tinned meats of
Chicago, with a pinch of our modern substitute for salt.
They carried him into the dining-room of a great hotel (in
that close atmosphere Death breathed more freely), and there
they gave him their cheap Indian tea. They brought him a
bottle of wine that they called champagne. Death drank it
up. They brought a newspaper and looked up the patent
medicines; they gave him the foods that it recommended for
invalids, and a little medicine as prescribed in the paper.
They gave him some milk and borax, such as children drink in
England.
Death arose ravening, strong, and strode again through
the cities.
The Lonely Idol
I had from a friend an old outlandish stone, a little
swine-faced idol to whom no one prayed.
And when I saw his melancholy case as he sat cross-legged
at receipt of prayer, holding a little scourge that the
years had broken (and no one heeded the scourge and no one
prayed and no one came with squealing sacrifice; and he had
been a god), then I took pity on the little forgotten thing
and prayed to it as perhaps they prayed long since, before
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