bunkers to capacity with some new-fangled fuel blocks or other, and then to steam aimlessly (as they thought) backward and forward between Kerguelen Island and the Antipodes Group. Little did they dream that this seemingly recklessly extravagant "fuel test" was in reality a carefully thought-out plan for the preservation of the world.
And as little did the general public connect the strangely deserted appearance of our naval ports with the gradual passing of the early wintry weather, and the appearance of that, rarely seen phenomenon, a second spring.
Then, as suddenly as the order had gone forth it was rescinded. There was much shrugging of epauletted shoulders, and raising of eyebrows under gold-laced caps, as the order was flashed from ship to ship to jettison every scrap of "Floxton's Fuel Blocks" and proceed to home stations burning ordinary coal.
For the watchers at the great telescope in the observatory at Greenwich had made numerous, varied and oft-repeated checks on the position of the earth, and they knew that the earth had finally returned to its appointed orbit.
And yet its position was not quite the same as before. A world is a clumsy thing for human efforts to guide, and it was thought advisable to be content with an approximate replacement. There still remains a slight difference in that angle which determines the seasonal changes.
Maybe this fact (here made public for the first time) will bring some consolation to the people who have waxed so eloquent of late about the vagaries of our weather. It may help them to realize that the trifling inconvenience we occasionally suffer is but a small fraction of the mischief intended us by that mad scientist whom Terry shot dead in the factory at Bow—the man who, but for the courage and devotion of the girl who is now Mrs. Hinton, would undoubtedly have succeeded in his attempt to wreck the world.
[THE END]
THE DOOMED
How dream the mad? My dreams have been to me
All that the friends I longed for could not be;
Clearer were dreams than hard realities;
Sweeter were dreams than piper's melodies.
How dream the mad? For if I can not dream,
I were much better dead. Will shadows seem
Real to me then, and winds that blow,
Bodied companions? Only madmen know.
