“Is it a vegetable or mineral?”
“It is animal.”
Their explanation as greatly confounded us.
“We get it from a fish, which Savant found when he was last over the ice. He saw the ice strangely cracking to find the queer fish. Grasping it, there was an explosion of sound. He brought some home, but they are hard to raise.” Finding us continue in solicitude to understand, they treat us in exchange of our revelations. Our story reminds them of one to match it.
One day explaining to Robet how Unit ladies make themselves young-looking by cosmetics and pencils, she says briskly, “I will take you to-morrow where they make themselves old and wise-looking. You will be pleased; it is a fine city.”
After dinner we go. Arriving, I see the houses are crackled in straight or curved lines of beautiful design. Lines are the fashion.
The costume was striped in pattern. The sward carpet was stems in graceful arrangement.
The table for light refreshments was a single piece, curving in rings from top-vase to cake and lower fruit-trays down to numberless seals, all curls of its octopus dimensions.
As Robet said, the special fad in face garniture of the ladies, as well as the gents, was aged penciling in lines. The marks of wisdom sit quaintly on young brows. Drooping mouths are traced to upward curve. Sad eyes smile; laughing are deepened in thought.
The ribbon-dressed babies are ribboned into similar hammocks, to be swung back and forth.