crusts from the hand with perfect impunity.

But beyond thirty! And I have gone there, and come back;
and now you may go there, for no longer is it high treason,
punishable by disgrace or death, to cross 30d or 175d.

My name is Jefferson Turck. I am a lieutenant in the navy--
in the great Pan-American navy, the only navy which now
exists in all the world.

I was born in Arizona, in the United States of North
America, in the year of our Lord 2116. Therefore, I am
twenty-one years old.

In early boyhood I tired of the teeming cities and
overcrowded rural districts of Arizona. Every generation of
Turcks for over two centuries has been represented in the
navy. The navy called to me, as did the free, wide,
unpeopled spaces of the mighty oceans. And so I joined the
navy, coming up from the ranks, as we all must, learning our
craft as we advance. My promotion was rapid, for my family
seems to inherit naval lore. We are born officers, and I
reserve to myself no special credit for an early advancement
in the service.

At twenty I found myself a lieutenant in command of the
aero-submarine Coldwater, of the SS-96 class. The Coldwater
was one of the first of the air and underwater craft which
have been so greatly improved since its launching, and was
possessed of innumerable weaknesses which, fortunately, have