of the world) felt to be an improbable account of the sumptuous
pleasures and varied advantages awaiting him downstairs. Michael
followed him, however, if only out of politeness, down an
apparently interminable spiral of staircase. At one point a door
opened. Michael stepped through it, and the unaccountable man in
buttons leapt after him and pinioned him where he stood. But he
only wished to stand; to stand and stare. He had stepped as it
were into another infinity, out under the dome of another heaven.
But this was a dome of heaven made by man. The gold and green and
crimson of its sunset were not in the shapeless clouds but in
shapes of cherubim and seraphim, awful human shapes with a
passionate plumage. Its stars were not above but far below, like
fallen stars still in unbroken constellations; the dome itself
was full of darkness. And far below, lower even than the lights,
could be seen creeping or motionless, great black masses of men.
The tongue of a terrible organ seemed to shake the very air in
the whole void; and through it there came up to Michael the sound
of a tongue more terrible; the dreadful everlasting voice of man,
calling to his gods from the beginning to the end of the world.
Michael felt almost as if he were a god, and all the voices were
hurled at him.

"No, the pretty things aren't here," said the demi-god in
buttons, caressingly. "The pretty things are downstairs. You
come along with me. There's something that will surprise you
downstairs; something you want very much to see."

Evidently the man in buttons did not feel like a god, so Michael
made no attempt to explain his feelings to him, but followed him
meekly enough down the trail of the serpentine staircase. He had