"Well, old pal, let's go back to when we parted," Clay began his narrative, with a reminiscent drawl. "Both of us were pretty much in a hurry, with lightning bolts flashing all around and likely to knock us to the other side of tomorrow. I remember scampering down the main gallery, with the lightning just about missing me on every side; then I dashed off down a side-gallery, where the lightning couldn't hit; but I was so mightily scared that I ran till my legs gave out. Then suddenly I noticed that you were gone, and it came to me that you had either been hit, or else had dashed off down another side-gallery. So I started back and lost my head so completely that I cried out, 'Frank! Frank!' at the top of my voice. Well, I had to pay for that folly! It wasn't a minute before I was surrounded by white-faced savages, whooping like wild Indians; and they lost no time about tying me with wire and carting me away. Later I learned, that they were war-scouts from Zu, spying on their dear old enemies of Wu.
"They bore me to their own country and threw me into a dungeon as a prisoner of war. Once or twice they were on the point of executing me, but my red hair interested them so much that they changed their minds just in time to save my neck. Finally they decided to exhibit me in a circus as a 'Wild man from Poko'—the name they give to the center of the earth, where they thought I hailed from. But one day, owing to my ability to see close at hand, I managed to pick the circus lock and escaped. I turned my hair white by means of some stolen dye and whitened my face also—then played highwayman, waylaying an obliging old gentleman and forcing him to change clothes with me—so that I could now pass as a native. By this time I had learned a good deal of the language and was able to start life as a Third Class citizen, after being sponsored by an agent of the Department of Public Unemployment, who arranged to have me swallow the Oath of Fidelity and take a regular job, in return for signing over my wages for the first hundred wakes."
"So, after all, Zu doesn't seem very different from Wu," I commented.
Clay laughed. "From all I can make out," he observed, "they're as much alike as the two halves of a split orange. Guess that's why they hate each other so heartily."
"Guess so," said I, while, as Clay settled back to resume his story, I thought, for a second time, that I could see that mysterious light and that strange shadowy form flitting across the darkness far down the gallery.
"My new work," continued my friend, "was as an employee of the Synthetic Capsule Producers, who manufacture all the country's food. By heaven!—how I loathed that job! All I had to do all day was to mix vitamins in the bread-capsules, making sure that they got just the right proportion of every vitamin from A to X. I didn't stick at that long, however; being able to see close at hand, I made myself so useful that I was promoted time after time, and after about a year became a Second Class citizen. All the while I was looking for a way to escape to the Overworld, but couldn't find any; also, I made a thousand inquiries about you, but no one had ever heard of any gray-eyed man like you. So I kept on working for the Capsule Producers, who still kept promoting me, until at last I was General Distribution Manager—which means that I had pretty much the freedom of the works, without anything much to do except draw my pay. Then it was that I started the Great Salt Revolt."
"Great Salt Revolt?"
"Yes, haven't you heard of it? About the biggest thing that ever happened in Zu! All began through an accident, too, or rather, through experiment. You see, it had struck me that these chalk-faces didn't put salt enough in their food, and you know how I've always liked salt; so one fine wake, when no one was looking, I emptied a few kegs of good old sodium chloride into a batch of dough being made into capsules for the whole country. The results were excellent, I thought—for the first time since reaching Zu, I could eat dinner with relish. But the natives didn't agree. You ought to have seen the faces they made when they tasted those capsules. Some of them grew deadly sick—suffered acute indigestion, convulsions, and other severe symptoms, for they had been so long with only a bare pinch of salt that their systems couldn't stand the added dose. I tell you, I never saw such wild times. There was riot, insurrection, almost civil war! The people thought they'd been poisoned, and they stormed about the Dictator's palace, crying, 'We want better food, better food, better food!' It was the funniest thing I ever saw."
"But, certainly, they could recognize the taste of salt!" I objected. "And, besides, chemists could analyze the capsules."