I remember him
long before he'd pushed his way to the head of the Wind Vanes Control.
I've seen many changes. Eh! I've worn the blue. And at last I've come to
see this crush and darkness and tumult and dead men carried by in heaps
on the ways. And all his doing! All his doing!"
His voice died away in scarcely articulate praises of Ostrog.
Graham thought. "Let me see," he said, "if I have it right."
He extended a hand and ticked off points upon his fingers. "The Sleeper
has been asleep--"
"Changed," said the old man.
"Perhaps. And meanwhile the Sleeper's property grew in the hands of
Twelve Trustees, until it swallowed up nearly all the great ownership of
the world. The Twelve Trustees--by virtue of this property have become
masters of the world. Because they are the paying power--just as the old
English Parliament used to be--"
"Eh!" said the old man. "That's so--that's a good comparison.
You're not so--"
"And now this Ostrog--has suddenly revolutionised the world by waking the
Sleeper--whom no one but the superstitious, common people had ever dreamt
would wake again--raising the Sleeper to claim his property from the
Council, after all these years."
The old man endorsed this statement with a cough. "It's strange," he
said, "to meet a man who learns these things for the first time
to-night."
"Aye," said Graham, "it's strange."
"Have you been in a Pleasure City?" said the old man.
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