the world from which I professed to have come, and of the manner in which my voyage had been accomplished.  After consulting Eveena and Davilo, I accepted the invitation, and intended to take the former with me.  She objected, however, that while she had heard much in her father’s house and during our travels of what I had to tell, her companions, scarcely less interested, were comparatively ignorant.  Indiscreetly, because somewhat provoked by these repeated sacrifices, as much of my inclination as her own, I mentioned my purpose at our evening meal, and bade her name those who should accompany me.  I was a little surprised when, carefully evading the dictation to which she was invited, she suggested that Eunane and Eive would probably most enjoy the opportunity.  That she should be willing to get rid of the most wilful and petulant of the party seemed natural.  The other selection confirmed the impression I had formed, but dared not express to one whom I had never blamed without finding myself in the wrong, that Eveena regarded Eive with a feeling more nearly approaching to jealousy than her nature seemed capable of entertaining.  I obeyed, however, without comment; and both the companions selected for me were delighted at the prospect.

The Academy is situated about half-way between Amacasfe and the Residence; the facilities of Martial travelling, and above all of telegraphic and telephonic communication, dispensing with all reason for placing great institutions in or near important cities.  We traveller by balloon, as I was anxious to improve myself in the management of these machines.  After frightening my companions so far as to provoke some, outcry from Eive, and from Eunane some saucy remarks on my clumsiness, on which no one else would have ventured, I descended safely, if not very creditably, in front of the building which serves as a local centre of Martial philosophy.  The residences of some sixty of the most eminent professors of various sciences—­elected by their colleagues as seats fall vacant, with the approval of the highest Court of Judicature and of the campta—­cluster around a huge building in the form of a hexagon made up of a multitude of smaller hexagons, in the centre whereof is the great hall of the same shape.  In the smaller chambers which surround it are telephones through which addresses delivered in a hundred different quarters are mechanically repeated; so that the residents or temporary visitors can here gather at once all the knowledge that is communicated by any man of note to any audience throughout the planet.  On this account numbers of young men just emancipated from the colleges come here to complete their education; and above each of the auditory chambers is another divided into six small rooms, wherein these visitors are accommodated.  A small house belonging to one of the members who happened to be absent was appropriated to me during my stay, and in its hall the philosophers gathered in the morning to converse with or to question