“They are opening the casket,” he explains. “Now they are taking Faithburn
out–a veritable mummy, yellow, hard and dry. Strike the body and it resounds
like a block of wood. They are now applying heat; now electricity. No result.
These experiments are suspended for a moment while Dr. Wilkins makes an
examination of the body. Dr. Wilkins, rising, declares the man to be dead.
‘Dead!’ exclaims everyone present. ‘Yes,’ answers Dr. Wilkins, ‘dead!’ ‘And how
long has he been dead?’ Dr. Wilkins makes another examination. ‘A hundred
years,’ he replies.”
So it is. Faithburn is dead, quite certainly dead! “Here is a method that needs
improvement,” remarks Mr. Smith to Dr. Wilkins, as the scientific committee on
hibernation carries the casket out. “So much for that experiment. But if poor
Faithburn is dead, at least he is sleeping,” he continued. “I wish I could get
some sleep. I am tired out, Doctor, quite tired out! Don’t you think a bath
would refresh me?”
“Certainly. But you must wrap yourself up well before you go out into the
hallway. You must not expose yourself to cold.”
“Hallway? Why, Doctor, as you well know, everything is done by machinery here.
It is not for me to go to the bath; the bath will come to me. Just look!” He
presses a button. After a few seconds a faint rumbling is heard, growing louder
and louder. Suddenly the door opens, and the tub appears.
Such, in the year 2889, is the history of one day in the life of the editor of
the Earth Chronicle. And the history of that one day is the history of 365 days
every year, except leap years, and then of 366 days–for as yet no means has
been found of increasing the length of the terrestrial year.