Feeling remarkably foolish, he began to wonder if what Viola was saying might not be actual fact. Could it be that he had been ill-mad-and had dreamed that whole wild vision of the year 2118?
Fortunately Viola's pleadings, in which Drayton presently joined, proved effective. With a number of good-natured warnings that she "keep her crazy brother at home, or at least under better restraint," the sergeant wrote down the name and address and called off his myrmidons.
Robert Drayton and the two Trenmores were free at last to walk quietly out of the southern entrance into Broad Street. They hastened to do so. They had, in fact, seen quite enough of Philadelphia city hall, in any century. Behind followed Bertram and his companion.
It was then a little after ten, and the street was by no means crowded. Nevertheless, as Drayton and Trenmore were more than a little disheveled, the party were glad to turn off from brightly lighted Broad into the comparative emptiness and gloom of Sansom Street. Just before they did so, Drayton paused for one glance backward at the enormous pile of gray masonry terminating the short vista of Broad Street. Had they really, as he hopefully surmised, returned into the safe protection of their own day and age?
High above, like a white ghost in the searchlight, brooded the giant figure of that old Quaker, his stony hand outstretched in petrified blessing. And below him, across the face of the yellow-lighted clock, a wraith of vapor drifted, obscuring the figures. What difference was there between it all as he saw it now and as he had seen it that very morning, as it seemed to him? The difference stared him in the face.
There was still an emblem above the southern arch. That morning it had been the ominous, sword-crossed Red Bell. Now it was a shield with the city colors, pale yellow and blue; above it glowed a huge "Welcome" and the letters "A. A. M. W." beneath it the one word "TRUTH."
"Associated Advertising Men of the World," he muttered half aloud, "and their convention was here-I mean is here. Yes, we're back in our own century again."
Half a block farther they all walked, in the silence of prisoners too suddenly released to believe their own good fortune. Then Trenmore abruptly halted. Bertram and Miss Skidoo coming up, they all stood grouped in the friendly shadow of an awning.
"Viola," exclaimed Trenmore, "tell me the facts and don't spare me! Was that thing you said to the policemen back there-was it really so?"
Her eyes opened wide. "What do you mean?"