It
was built upon one of the canals which here enter the city and formed
one side of a long pier or dock to which and from which interesting
little boats were constantly approaching and as constantly departing.
"A hum of business and everyday work surrounded the place, and it seemed
refreshing to note the stir and bustle of affairs. Streams of people
were entering the Court as we arrived. They were inhabitants and
watchers bringing the new incarnations to the Registeries to have their
origin recorded if they could recall it. Indeed many spirits fail
utterly to remember their former condition, and happen, as we might say,
upon Mars, unexplained and inexplicable. They even are without speech
and learn the Martian language as a child learns to talk.
"We pushed in with the jostling crowd, and even as I entered I could
hear the murmurous chant of the Chorus Halls, borne hither-ward on the
morning wind. It now seemed a long time, although but one day apparently
had elapsed since I sat, a trail of luminous ether, undergoing the
strange process of materialization.
"How incredible it all was, how incomprehensible. I pinched myself until
I could have cried out with pain, and at that very instant a voice
saluted me, calling me by name and a rushing figure encountered me. I
stood transfixed. Before me was Chapman, the mechanic, workman, and
photographer for Mr. Rutherford, in New York in the seventies, a man
whom I knew well, from whom I had learned much, and whose skill helped
so largely in the production of Rutherford's negatives of the Moon.
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