Page:Melbourne and Mars.djvu/79

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THE EARTHBORN'S CLUB.
77

altruistic socialists, all democrats; all either as individuals or as classes willing to waive our own rights in favor of others, and yet we cannot be equal. Andrew Grayson is not even 'Sir' or 'Esq.' and yet he stands in the first rank, and all bow to him as a scholar in his line.

The clerk in charge of our depôt advised me to report myself at the Equatorial hostel in the metropolis. It is the largest in existence. It has four stories and a basement, and has a solid stone front calculated to last a thousand years. There are ten thousand rooms in it, and its corridors are traversed by some twenty miles of tram lines. It is always full, and the overflow of its residents fill several thousand rooms built in the rear, half a mile from the Grand Avenue, to which the main building has a mile of frontage. To describe this hostel with its fountains and gardens, its courts, gymnasium, music rooms, lecture hall, theatre, church; its suites of private rooms, its furniture, its balconies, its gardens and summer houses on the roof is to describe a city in miniature. It is easy to spend years in it and not see half its beauties and advantages. Its rooms are all in communication with the entrance hall, and a visitor can instantly ascertain if the person he calls to see is at home.

After getting at the Museum the little information given above I entered my name at the Equatorial, and according to promise went to dine with Grayson. For the next year I will spend my time in the centre of the Great City. Five hours daily at the College of Engineers, some hours of leisure with the Grayson family. The rest of my time will probably be divided amongst the Museums, Libraries, Art Galleries, the Earthborn's Club and at the hostel, where I intend to sleep. I will write to my parents once a week, and I already begin to long for the company of father, mother, and my dear sister Emma.


CHAPTER XIV.


The Earthborn's Club.

ABOUT sixteen o'clock Grayson and I went to the home of the Earthborns'. I was much surprised to find it a large building and to see, when we went into it, that there were so many people of both sexes there at that early hour. I thought that there could only be a few; what was my astonishment to find that this club has more than a thousand members nearly half of whom were women of various ages. It appears to me that with this club to visit Dr. Hildreth had not much trouble in picking up the information she gave my mother on the day I overheard their conversation, Grayson had been away for a few weeks and as he went into room after room the members rose to greet him; I did not know until then that he was president of the club. Really in meeting this man at the very outset of my career I was