The convenience as well as the beauty of the results
commended themselves to all. Wherever Chromatistes,--for by that name
the most trustworthy authorities concur in calling him,--turned his
variegated frame, there he at once excited attention, and attracted respect.
No one now needed to "feel" him; no one mistook his front for his back;
all his movements were readily ascertained by his neighbours without
the slightest strain on their powers of calculation; no one jostled him,
or failed to make way for him; his voice was saved the labour
of that exhausting utterance by which we colourless Squares
and Pentagons are often forced to proclaim our individuality
when we move amid a crowd of ignorant Isosceles.
The fashion spread like wildfire. Before a week was over,
every Square and Triangle in the district had copied the example
of Chromatistes, and only a few of the more conservative Pentagons
still held out. A month or two found even the Dodecagons infected
with the innovation. A year had not elapsed before the habit
had spread to all but the very highest of the Nobility.
Needless to say, the custom soon made its way from the district
of Chromatistes to surrounding regions; and within two generations
no one in all Flatland was colourless except the Women and the Priests.
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