"Jules Verne - In the Year 2889 (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Verne Jules)

"Indeed!" answers Mr. Smith, without manifesting the slightest irritation.
"Well, you English will ever be the same. No, no, Sir John, don't count on me
for help. Give up our fairest province, Britain? Why not ask France generously
to renounce possession of Africa, that magnificent colony the complete conquest
of which cost her the labor of 800 years? You will be well received!"
"You decline! All is over then!" the British agent murmurs sadly. "The United
Kingdom falls to the share of the Americans; the Indies to that of--"
"The Russians," Mr. Smith completes the sentence.
"Australia--"
"Has an independent government."
"Then nothing at all remains for us!" sighs Sir John, downcast.
"Nothing?" asks Mr. Smith, laughing. "Well, now, there's Gibraltar!"
With this sally the audience ends. The clock is striking 12, the hour of
breakfast. Mr. Smith returns to his chamber. Where the bed stood in the morning
a table all spread comes up through the floor. For Mr. Smith, being above all a
practical man, has reduced the problem of existence to its simplest terms. For
him, instead of the endless suites of apartments of yesteryear, one room fitted
with ingenious mechanical contrivances is enough. Here he sleeps, takes his
meals--in short, lives.
He seats himself. In the mirror of the phonotelephote is visible the same
chamber at Paris which appeared in it this morning. A table furnished forth is
likewise in readiness here, for notwithstanding the difference in hours, Mr.
Smith and his wife have arranged to take their meals simultaneously. It is
delightful thus to breakfast tete-a-tete with someone 3000 miles or so away.
Just now, Mrs. Smith's chamber has no occupant.
"She is late! Woman's punctuality! Progress everywhere except there!" mutters
Mr. Smith as he turns the tap for the first dish. For like all wealthy folk in
our day, Mr. Smith has done away with the domestic kitchen and is a subscriber
to the Grand Alimentation Company, which sends through a vast network of tubes
to subscribers' residences all sorts of dishes, as a varied assortment is always
in readiness. A subscription costs money, to be sure, but the cuisine is of the
best, and the system has this advantage, that it does away with the pestering
race of the cordons bleus. Mr. Smith receives and eats, all alone, the hors
d'oeuvres, entrees, roast meat, and legumes that constitute the repast. He is
just finishing the dessert when Mrs. Smith appears in the telephote mirror.
"Why, where have you been?" asks Mr. Smith through the telephone.
"What! You are already at the dessert? Then I am late," she exclaims, with
winsome naivete. "Where have I been, you ask? Why, at my dressmaker's. The hats
are just lovely this season! I suppose I forgot to note the time, and so am a
little late."
"Yes, a little," growls Mr. Smith; "so little that I have already quite finished
breakfast. Excuse me if I leave you now, but I must be going."
"Oh certainly, my dear; goodbye till evening."
Smith steps into his air-coach, which awaits him at a window. "Where do you wish
to go, sir?" inquires the coachman.
"Let me see; I have three hours," Mr. Smith muses. "Jack, take me to my
accumulator works at Niagara."
For Mr. Smith has obtained a lease of the great falls of Niagara. For ages the
energy developed by the falls went unutilized. Smith, applying Jackson's
invention, now collects this energy, and sells it. His visit to the works takes