things that have happened--especially of late years--. If I was the
Sleeper, to tell you the truth, I couldn't know less about them."

"Eh!" said the voice. "Old, are you? You don't sound so very old! But
it's not everyone keeps his memory to my time of life--truly. But these
notorious things! But you're not so old as me--not nearly so old as me.
Well! I ought not to judge other men by myself, perhaps. I'm young--for
so old a man. Maybe you're old for so young."

"That's it," said Graham. "And I've a queer history. I know very little.
And history! Practically I know no history. The Sleeper and Julius
Caesar are all the same to me. It's interesting to hear you talk of
these things."

"I know a few things," said the old man. "I know a thing or two.
But--. Hark!"

The two men became silent, listening. There was a heavy thud, a
concussion that made their seat shiver. The passers-by stopped, shouted
to one another. The old man was full of questions; he shouted to a man
who passed near. Graham, emboldened by his example, got up and accosted
others. None knew what had happened.

He returned to the seat and found the old man muttering vague
interrogations in an undertone. For a while they said nothing to
one another.

The sense of this gigantic struggle, so near and yet so remote, oppressed
Graham's imagination. Was this old man right, was the report of the
people right, and were the revolutionaries winning? Or were they all in