I knew I could not sleep that night, and as for lying awake and thinking, it argues no cowardice, I am sure, to confess that I was afraid of it.

When, in reply to my host's question, I frankly told him this, he replied that it would be strange if I did not feel just so, but that I need have no anxiety about sleeping; whenever I wanted to go to bed, he would give me a dose which would insure me a sound night's sleep without fail.
Next morning, no doubt, I would awake with the feeling of an old citizen.
"Before I acquired that," I replied, "I must know a little more about the sort of Boston I have come back to.

You told me when we were upon the house-top that though a century only had elapsed since I fell asleep, it had been marked by greater changes in the conditions of humanity than many a previous millennium.

With the city before me I could well believe that, but I am very curious to know what some of the changes have been.

To make a beginning somewhere, for the subject is doubtless a large one, what solution, if any, have you found for the labor question?
It was the Sphinx's riddle of the nineteenth century, and when I dropped out the Sphinx was threatening to devour society, because the answer was not forthcoming.