HE whole thing started when the clock on the Metropohtan Tower began to lun backward. It was not a graceful pioceeding. The hands had been moving onward in their customary de- hheiate fashion, slowly and thoughtfully, but sud- dcnlv the people in the oflices near the clock's face he^id an ominous creaking and groaning. There" was a blight, hardly discernible shiver thi-ough the tower, and then something gave with a crash. The big hands on the clock began to move backward. Immediately after the crash all the creaking and groaning ceased, and instead, the usual quiet again hung over everything. One or two of the occupants of the upper offices put their heads out into the halls, but the elevators were running as usual, the lights were burning, and all seemed calm and peaceful. The clerks and stenographers went back to their ledgers and typewriters, the business call- ers returned to the discussion of their errands, and the ordinary course of business was resumed. Arthur Chamberlain was dictating a letter to Estelle Woodward, his sole stenographer. When the crash came he paused, listened, and then resumed his task. It was not a difficult one. Talking to Estelle Woodward was at no time an onerous duty, but it must be admitted that Arthur Chamberlain found it difficult to keep his conversation strictly upon his business. He was at this time engaged in dictating a letter to his principal creditors, the Gary & Milton Com- pany, explaining that their demand for the im- mediate payment of the instalment then due upon, his office furniture was untimely and unjust. A young and budding engineer in New York never has too much money, and when he is young as Arthur Chamberlain was, and as fond of pleasant company, and not too fond of economizing, he is , liable to find all demands for payment untimely and he usually considers them _^^__^_^_^^______ unjust as well. Arthur — aw^BHg^^M^B finished dictating the let- ter and sighed. "Miss Woodward," he said regretfully, "I am afraid I shall never make a successful man." Miss Woodward shook her head vaguely. She did not seem to take his remark very seriously, but then, she had learned never to take any of his remarks seriously. She had been puzzled at first by his manner of treating everything with a half- ^m^—w^^^^^^^b joking pessimism, but now ignored it. She was interested in her own probleias. She had suddenly decided that she was going to be an old maid, and it bothered her. She had discovered that she did not like any one well enough to marry, and she was in her twenty-second year. She was not a native of New York, and the few young men she had met there she did not care for. She had regretfully decided she was too finicky, too I/ix theory, ^^ of the E have all heard of and read abotd the Eiitstcin theory, which involves the use in its calculations of the mysterious "fourth dimension." Here our author gives a ■wanderftiUy effective picttire of what the fourth dimension, did in the annihilatioyi- of (itnej_wi t/if wijiing out of the centuries, where it brings a company of hventietk century business men and women to a lime centuries back from the days of modern Neva York — they are transferred with great rapidity of receding tiwe to the days when Indians were llie only inhabitants of Man- hattan, until at last the recession of the centuries ceases and gives them pause for a while.' The modern sky- scraper has accompanied them on their way, but prob- lems of food and support have to be worked out for ihcm in their new position in the ages. At last they evolve a way to return, to get their skyscraper back to familiar old Madison Square. Read mid jce how they do it. could not understand their absorption in boxing and baseball and she did not like the way they danced. She had considered the matter and decided that she would have to reconsider her former opinion of women who did not marry. Heretofore she had thought there must be something the matter with them. Now she believed that she would come to their ovra estate, and probably for the same reason. She could not fail in love and she wanted to. She read all the popular novels and thrilled at the love-scenes contained in them, but when any of the young men she knew became in the slightest degree sentimental she found herself bored, and disgusted with herself for being bored. Still, she could not help it, and was struggling to reconcile herself to a life without romance. She was far too pretty for that, of course, and Arthur Chamberlain often longed to tell her how pretty she really was, but her abstracted air held him at arms' length. He lay back at ease in his swivel-chair and con- sidered, looking at her with unfeigned pleasure. She. did not notice it, for she was so much absorbed in her oivn thoughts that sh^ rarely noticed anything he said or did when they were not in the line of her duties. "Miss Woodward," he repeated, "I said I think I'll never make a successful man. Do you know what that means?" She looked at him mutely, polite inquiry in her eyes. "It means," he said gravely, "that I am going broke. Unless something turns up in the next three weeks, or a month at the latest, I'll have to get a job." "And that means — " she asked. "All this will go to pot," he explained with a sweeping gesture. "I thought I'd better tell you as much in advance as I could." "Yon mean you're go- ■^■^^^^^^■nUM ing to give up your office ■■ — and me?", she asked, A little alacmed. "Giving up you will he the harder of the two," he said with a smile, "biit that's what it means. You'll have no difficulty finding a new place, with three weeks in which to look for one, but I'm sorry." "I'm sorry, too, Mr, Chamberlain," she said, her brow puckered. She was not really — ^^^^^^^^^^^M frightened, because she knew she could get an- other position, but she became aware of rather more regret than she had expected. There was silence for a moment. "Jove!" said Arthur, suddenly. "It's getting dark, isn't it?" It was. It was growing dark with unusual rapidity. Arthur went to his window and looked out. "Funny," he remarked in a moment or two. 'Things don't look just right, down there, some- tfastidious, but could not seem to help herself. She how. There are very few people about."