Your imaginary wholesale Shakerdom is all very fine, said I. Your Utopia, your New Atlantis, and the rest are pretty to look at.  But your philosophers are treating the world of living souls as if they were, each of them, playing a game of solitaire,—­all the pegs and all the holes alike.  Life is a very different sort of game.  It is a game of chess, and not of solitaire, nor even of checkers.  The men are not all pawns, but you have your knights, bishops, rooks,—­yes, your king and queen,—­to be provided for.  Not with these names, of course, but all looking for their proper places, and having their own laws and modes of action.  You can play solitaire with the members of your own family for pegs, if you like, and if none of them rebel.  You can play checkers with a little community of meek, like-minded people.  But when it comes to the handling of a great state, you will find that nature has emptied a box of chessmen before you, and you must play with them so as to give each its proper move, or sweep them off the board, and come back to the homely game such as I used to see played with beans and kernels of corn on squares marked upon the back of the kitchen bellows.

It was curious to see how differently Number Five’s narrative was received by the different listeners in our circle.  Number Five herself said she supposed she ought to be ashamed of its absurdities, but she did not know that it was much sillier than dreams often are, and she thought it might amuse the company.  She was herself always interested by these ideal pictures of society.  But it seemed to her that life must be dull in any of them, and with that idea in her head her dreaming fancy had drawn these pictures.

The Professor was interested in her conception of the existence of the Lunites without waste, and the death in life of the nitrogen-breathing Saturnians.  Dream-chemistry was a new subject to him.  Perhaps Number Five would give him some lessons in it.

At this she smiled, and said she was afraid she could not teach him anything, but if he would answer a few questions in matter-of-fact chemistry which had puzzled her she would be vastly obliged to him.

“You must come to my laboratory,” said the Professor.

“I will come to-morrow,” said Number Five.

Oh, yes!  Much laboratory work they will do!  Play of mutual affinities.  Amalgamates.  No freezing mixtures, I’ll warrant!

Why shouldn’t we get a romance out of all this, hey?

But Number Five looks as innocent as a lamb, and as brave as a lion.  She does not care a copper for the looks that are going round The Teacups.

Our Doctor was curious about those cases of anchylosis, as he called it, of the lower jaw.  He thought it a quite possible occurrence.  Both the young girls thought the dream gave a very hard view of the optimists, who look forward to a reorganization of society which shall rid mankind of the terrible evils of over-crowding and competition.