 profoundly awed, »that a thousand years
instead of a hundred had elapsed since I last looked on this city, I should now
believe you.«
    »Only a century has passed,« he answered, »but many a millennium in the
world's history has seen changes less extraordinary.«
    »And now,« he added, extending his hand with an air of irresistible
cordiality, »let me give you a hearty welcome to the Boston of the twentieth
century and to this house. My name is Leete, Dr. Leete they call me.«
    »My name,« I said as I shook his hand, »is Julian West.«
    »I am most happy in making your acquaintance, Mr. West,« he responded.
»Seeing that this house is built on the site of your own, I hope you will find
it easy to make yourself at home in it.«
    After my refreshment Dr. Leete offered me a bath and a change of clothing,
of which I gladly availed myself.
    It did not appear that any very startling revolution in men's attire had
been among the great changes my host had spoken of, for, barring a few details,
my new habiliments did not puzzle me at all.
    Physically, I was now myself again. But mentally, how was it with me, the
reader will doubtless wonder. What were my intellectual sensations, he may wish
to know, on finding myself so suddenly dropped as it were into a new world. In
reply let me ask him to suppose himself suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye,
transported from earth, say, to Paradise or Hades. What does he fancy would be
his own experience? Would his thoughts return at once to the earth he had just
left, or would he, after the first shock, wellnigh forget his former life for a
while, albeit to be remembered later, in the interest excited by his new
surroundings? All I can say is, that if his experience were at all like mine in
the transition I am describing, the latter hypothesis would prove the correct
one. The impressions of amazement and curiosity which my new surroundings
produced occupied my mind, after the first shock, to the exclusion of all other
thoughts. For the time the memory of my former life was, as it were, in
abeyance.
    No sooner did I find myself physically rehabilitated through the kind
offices of my host, than I became eager to return to the house-top; and
presently we were comfortably established there in easy-chairs, with the city
beneath and around
