 Chapter 9 of The Clockwork Man, by E. V. Odle. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Clockwork Man. Chapter 9. Greg. 1. An hour later the doctor alone paced the floor of the little surgery. He had done everything possible to calm himself. He had taken bromide. He had been out for a smart turn around the roads. He had forced himself to sit down and answer some letters. But it was impossible to ease the pressure of his thoughts. He felt that his brain would never cease from working round and round in a circle of hopeless inquiry. In the end, and late as it was, he had telephoned for Greg. The Clockwork Man lay in the coal cellar, which was situated in the area just opposite the surgery door. He lay there, stiff and stark, with an immobile expression upon his features and his eyes and mouth wide open. After that final collapse, the doctor had succeeded somehow in restoring him to his normal shape. And then, by miraculous chance, he discovered a hand that, when turned, had the effect of producing in the Clockwork Man an appearance of complete quiescence. He looked now more like a tailor's dummy than anything else, and the apparent absence of blood circulation and even respiration rendered the illusion almost perfect. He looked lifelike without seeming to be alive. But he was alive. The doctor had made sure of that by certain tentative experiments, and he had also taken advantage of his passive condition in order to make a thorough examination, so far as was possible, of this marvel of the future. As a result of his investigation, the doctor had failed to come to any definite conclusion. There was merely deepened in him a sense of outrage and revolt. It was impossible to accept the Clockwork Man as a human being. He was a tissue of physiological lies. It could be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, and by reference to all known laws of anatomy that he did not exist. His internal organs, heard in action through a stethoscope, resembled the noise made by the humming of a dynamo at full pitch. And yet this wildly incredible being, this unspeakable travesty of all living organisms, this thing most opposite to humanity, actually breathed and conversed. He was a sentient being. He was more than a man, for he could be turned into something else by simply pressing a stop. He understood, there was no doubt that the mechanism permitted the owner of it to run up and down the evolutionary scale of species according to adjustment. There were one or two other details which the doctor had not failed to observe. The Clockwork Man had no apparent sex. The body was scarred and disfigured, as though many surgical operations had been performed upon it. There was some organ faintly approximating to the human heart, but it was infinitely more powerful, and the valvular action was exceedingly complex. Fitted into the clock in such a way that they could be removed were a series of long tubes with valve-like endings. The doctor had removed one or two of these and examined them very closely, but he could not arrive at any idea of their purpose. At every point in his examination the doctor had found himself confronted by an elaboration, in some cases a flat contradiction of ordinary human functions. He could not grasp even the elementary premises of a state of affairs that had made the Clockwork Man possible. II Shortly after midnight the doctor's expectant ear caught the sound of someone alighting from a bicycle. A moment later footsteps clattered down the area stairs, and Greg, still a tiredness cricket flannels, appeared at the open door. The smile faded from his lips as he beheld the drawn, agitated features of the doctor. �Hello!� he exclaimed. �You look pretty bent.� The doctor shut the door carefully and lifted a warning finger. �Greg, this thing must never be known. It must never go beyond ourselves.� �Why not?� Greg sat down on the couch and twisted his hat idly between his fingers. �Because� said the doctor, trying hard to control the twitching of his features, �it's too terrible. What I have seen tonight is not fit for mortal eye to behold. It's inhuman. It's monstrous.� He sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands. The presence of another person brought a kind of relief to his pent-up feelings. He let himself go. �Oh, God! It's the end of all things, Greg. It's the end of all sane hopes for the human race. If it is true that in the future man has come to this, then the whole of history is a farce and mockery. The universe is no more than a box of conjuring tricks, and man is simply a performing monkey. I tell you, Greg, this discovery, if it is made known, will blast everything good in existence.� �Stop a minute!� exclaimed Greg, arising in sheer astonishment. �You seem to be upset. I don't understand what you are raving about.� The doctor stabbed a finger wildly in the direction of the coal-cellar. �If you had seen what I have seen tonight, you would understand. You would be feeling exactly as I am now.� Greg placed a hand soothingly upon his friend's shoulder. �Why didn't you send for me before? You're over-strung. This experience has been too much for you.� �I grant you that,� said the doctor, hollowly. �I know only too well what effect this shock will have upon me. You are a younger man than I am, Greg. I am glad you have been spared this sight.� �But where is the clockwork man?� demanded Greg presently. The doctor's finger again indicated the coal-cellar. �He... he's in there. I... I managed to stop him. He... he's in a kind of sleep.� And then, as Greg took a leisurely stride towards the door, as though to investigate matters on his own, the doctor caught hold of his sleeve. �Don't do that. Send first to what I have to tell you. I rather fancy it will take the edge off your curiosity.� Greg swung round and sat on the couch. He lit a cigarette. He made no effort to conceal his sense of superior self-possession. The doctor took the cigarette that was proffered to him and, leaning forward, tried to take a light from his companion. But his hand shook so violently that he could not manage the simple operation. In the end, Greg lit another match and held it with a steady hand. As the doctor told the story of what had taken place so recently in the little room, Greg sat nursing an uplifted knee between his hands and with the cigarette drooping highly from his lips. Once or twice he interrupted with a gesture, but if he experienced astonishment he never betrayed the fact. Even the description of the sudden growth of beer did not disturb the look of calm inquiry upon his hard-set features. He seemed to be following something in his mind that elucidated the facts as they came out. And as the narrative drew to a close he nodded his head very slightly, as though having found corroboration for these strange events in some theory of his own and vice versa. When at last the doctor reached the climax of his tale there was no horror written upon Greg's countenance. He remained impassive, a sort of buffer against which the doctor's hysterical phrases recoiled in vain. There was a moment's silence. The doctor had been talking so rapidly and he had been so swayed by his feelings that he had scarcely noticed the other's demeanor. When he looked up Greg was walking with a measured tread up and down the floor. He had dropped his cigarette and his mouth was formed in the act of whistling. The doctor started to his feet. What! you believe it then? You, who have not seen this mystery, you believe it? Why not? Greg paused in his walk and looked genuinely surprised. But, surely, the doctor sat down again and groaned. Surely you cannot accept such a story without a sign of incredulity. What state of mind is that which can believe such things without having seen them? Why, you credulous fool, I might have invented the whole thing! Greg smiled. I am one of those who are prepared to accept the miraculous at second hand. Besides, you forget that I have already witnessed some of the clockwork man's manifestations of ingenuity. Nothing that you have told me causes me more astonishment than I experienced on the first occasion we had reason to believe the clockwork man was, what he is. It is all, to my mind, quite natural and logical. But you must admit, interpolated the doctor, that I might be deceiving you. I could easily do it, just to prove you in the wrong. I can assure you that nothing would suit my humor better at the present moment, instead of which it is I who appear the fool. I never wanted to believe in the clockwork man. I was angry with you for believing in him. I thought that it would be a just revenge on my part to hoax you. Greg shook his head. You might try to do such a thing, but you would certainly fail. Besides, I know you are telling the truth. Your manner plainly shows it. He sat down on the couch again. Perhaps it is just as well that I did believe in the clockwork man from the first. For while you have been going through these unpleasant experiences, I have been thinking very hard, and have actually arrived at certain conclusions, which are, I venture to think, amply confirmed by your story. That is why I have shown no surprise at your statements. The clockwork man is indeed true to his type as I have imagined him. He is the very embodiment of the future as I have long envisaged it. At these words the doctor threw up his arms in despair. Then I write myself down a fool, he exclaimed. I had no such wild hope or such equally wild despair with regard to the future of the human race. I admit that I have been behindhand. These matters have slipped from my grasp. The calls of ordinary life have claimed me as they must every man past his first youth. But I am ready to believe anything that can be explained. It is precisely because the clockwork man can be explained, interrupted Greg, with some eagerness, that I find it easy to believe him. But how can you explain him, protested the doctor, with some trace of his old irritation? You have not even seen the clock! Your description of it is quite good enough for me, rejoined the other with emphasis. I can see it in my mind's eye. Moreover, it was obvious to me, from the first, that there must exist some such instrument in order that the clockwork man might be adjusted when necessary. One deduced that. The doctor shuddered slightly and leaned his head upon his arm. Consider yourself lucky that you never did see the clock and that you never had the opportunity of testing its efficiency. It's all very well for you to wax enthusiastic over your theories, but facts are hard masters. Recently, said Greg, who is beginning to grow impatient with the other's manner. And since the facts have revealed themselves, what is the use of trying to evade them? Here we have a clockwork man, a creature entirely without precedent, for there is no record of his having existed in the past, and so far as we know there has been no successful attempt to create such a thing in our own times. Everything favors my original hypothesis, that he has in some way, probably through some fault in the mechanism that controls him, lapsed into these earlier years of human existence. That seems to me feasible. If man has indeed conquered time and space, then the slightest irregularity in this new functioning principle would result in a catastrophe such as we must suppose has happened to the clockwork man. It is more than probable that a slight adjustment would result in his speedy return to conditions more proper to his true state. But this does not explain him, broken the doctor bitterly. Wait, I am coming to that. We have to get the facts firmly in our heads. First of all, there is a mechanism, a functioning principle which causes certain processes to take place, and enables the clockwork man to behave as no ordinary human being ever could behave. What that functioning principle is, we do not yet know. We can only posit its existence. We must do that, and draw what inference we can from its results. Now, the effect of the functioning principle is clear to me, if the cause is hidden. Obviously, the effect of the mechanism is to accelerate certain processes in the purely human part of the clockwork man's organism, to such an extent that what would take years, or even generations, to take place in ordinary mortals takes place instantaneously. Just the growth of beard, the changes in appearance, the total collapse. Obviously, these physiological variations occur in the case of the clockwork man very rapidly. And by adjustment any change may be produced. The problem of his normal existence hangs upon the very careful regulation of the clock, which, I take it, is the keyboard of the functioning principle. But what concerns us at present is the fact that this power of rapid growth makes the clockwork man able to act in complete defiance of our accepted laws relating to cause and effect. We had an argument about that, said the doctor Dismoy. He tried to explain that to me, but, I must say, he was no more successful than you are. The whole thing is a complete haze. But Greg took little notice of the interruption. Once you have grasped this idea of a new sort of relativity, he continued, once you have realized that the clockwork man behaves in accordance with laws quite different to our own, you can proceed to find some basis for such a phenomenon. The clockwork man behaves in a certain manner, therefore there must be some cause, however improbable it may appear to us, to account for such behavior. Now what is the cause of ordinary human action? It is something equally unaccountable. We can explain it in terms of a system, of a series of processes. But we do not really know what is the secret spring upon which the human animal moves. We can describe the machinery of the human body, but we do not really know what life is, or what is the real nature of the forest that produces our actions. So far we know as much about the clockwork man as we do about ourselves. The difference is confined to processes. All this is obvious, said the Doctor. I have seen enough to convince me of that. Precisely. And because you have seen more than I have, you are less able to understand the matter than I am. You cannot see the wood for the trees. Again, you were frightened out of your life. Your scientific instincts were stampeded. You saw only a hideous malformation, a neural freak, a preposterous human machine. It was inconceivable that you should have been able to think clearly under the circumstances. Consider the matter in the sober aftermath of reason, and you must agree with me that it is really not more extraordinary that a man should function by mechanical means than that he should function at all. I don't agree, retorted the Doctor, with unexpected sharpness. I think it is far more amazing that a human being should function as he does than that he should be made to function differently by mechanical means. The clockwork man is no more wonderful in that sense than you or I. He is simply different, damnably different. Greg laughed softly. Well, that is only another way of saying what I have already said. You seem to regard the clockwork man as a sort of offense. He upset your sense of decency. To me he is profoundly interesting. I accept him, and all that his curious constitution implies. Think of the triumph for the human brain. For man, thanks to this stupendous invention of the clock, has actually enlarged the universe. A multi-form world, murmured the Doctor, recollecting the clockwork man's description, a world of many dimensions. Yes, echoed Greg enthusiastically, a multi-form world, a world in which man moves as he will, grows as he will, behaves in every way exactly as he wills. A world set free. Think of what it means. Stop! cried the Doctor, and there was almost anger in his features as he leapt to his feet. It is you who are raving now. How can there exist such a world, and what plight has overtaken the human race that it is now depended upon mechanical contrivance for its actions? But no, I refuse to believe that the clockwork man represents the final destiny of man. He is a myth, a caricature, at the most a sort of experiment. This multi-form world of which he talks so glibly is an extravagant boast, besides, who would care to live in such a world, and with every action conditioned by an exact mechanism? Your optimism about this extraordinary affair amazes me even more than the thing itself. But the best, what it means is that man has come to final ruin, not that he has achieved any real mastery of life. If all the creatures in the world, eight thousand years hence, or indeed clockwork men, then it is because some monstrous tyranny has come to birth in the race of man. It is because some diabolical plan has been evolved to make all men slaves. The clock may make men independent of time and space, but it obviously condemns him to an eternity of slavery. That is why I am still loath to believe in the evidence of my own eyes. That is why any explanation of this phenomenon is better than the obvious one. But the proof, interjected Greg, you cannot escape from the facts. There lies the clockwork man. Explain him otherwise if you can. I cannot, groaned the doctor, his face hidden between his hands. And then he looked up quickly and his eyes cleared. After all, that is the consoling feature of the affair. If the clockwork man were really capable of explanation, then indeed there would be an end to all sanity. But since he is inexplicable, there still remains the chance that we may be able to put all thought of him out of our minds. I tell you, Greg, I can live this down. I can forget this night of horror. But not if there is an explanation to fit the case. Not if I can satisfy my reason. As I remarked before, Greg resumed coolly, you were not in a fit state to carry out the investigation. You could not bring yourself to accept even the obvious. Fortunately, you remembered some of the most salient facts. Those tubes fitted into the clock, for example. I regard those as highly suggestive. Think of it, Allingham. The energy of generations compressed into a tube and so utilized by a single individual. For that is what must have happened in the year 8000. The scientists must have discovered the means of gathering up and storing nervous energy. Everybody has this extra reserve of force. That solved one problem. Then there was the question of a better distribution. They had to invent a new nervous system. If we ever have an opportunity of examining the clockwork man thoroughly, we shall find out what that system is. Studying in rough terms, we may assume that it is probably an enlargement of the compass of what we call afferent and efferent impulses. There will also be new centers, both of reflex and voluntary action. Each impulse, in this new system, has a longer range of effectiveness, a greater duration in time. Greg paused abruptly, as though arriving at some crisis in his thought. It must be so. There is no other explanation to cover what we have seen. Man, as we know him, is no more or less than what his nervous system allows him to be. A creature of action. His actions are nevertheless strictly prescribed by the limitations of his neural organism. In the case of the clockwork man, we are confronted by the phenomenon of an enormous extension of nervous activity. One imagines terrific waves of energy unimpeded, or relatively unimpeded, by the inhibitory processes that check expenditure in the case of a normal organism. Of course there must be inhibition of some sort, but the whole system of the clockwork man is on so grand a scale that his actions take place in a different order of time. His relapses, as he describes them, are simply the parallel of that degeneration of tissue which accompanies ordinary human fatigue. That is why his ineptitude appears ghastly to us. Again, his perceptions would be different. He would see relatively far more of the universe, and his actions would carry him further and further into the future, far beyond those laws which we have fashioned for ourselves in accordance with our neural limitations. For just as man is at the mercy of his nervous system, so his conception of universal laws is the natural outcome of nervous apprehension. And the universe is no more or less than what we think it is. In his growing excitement Greg rose and paced the floor of the room, walking away from the doctor. He did not hear the slight snigger that broke from the latter, nor had he observed any signs of deeper incredulity in the features of his friend that might have led him to moderate his enthusiasm. He continued in an exultant voice. Think of what this means. We know the future. The accidental appearance of the clockwork man may save the human race generations of striving and effort in a wrong direction. Or rather, it will save us from passing through the intermediate stages consciously, for everything has already happened, and the utmost we can hope is to escape the knowledge of its happening. We shall be able to take a great leap forward into the future. Once we have grasped the principle of the clockwork man, the course of humanity is clear. It may still be several thousands of years before the final achievement, but we can at least begin. No! thundered the doctor, suddenly leaping to his feet. By heavens no! Not that! Greg swung round with a gesture of annoyance. Both men were now pitched to their highest key, and every word that was spoken seemed to be charged with terrific import. Why not?" said Greg, catching his breath. The doctor's reply was equally breathless. "'Because I, for one, refuse to accept such a responsibility. If this monstrosity is indeed the type of the future, then I reject the future. I will be no party to any attempt to reproduce him. For that I can see is what lurks in your mind. You would have us all clockwork men before our time. But I tell you, rather than that should happen, rather than the human race should be robbed of a few more generations of freedom, I will take step to prevent it ever being known that the clockwork man has paid us this visit. I will hide him. Not even you shall set eyes on him again. He shall remain an unfathomable mystery. No pagan priest ever guarded the sacred mysteries of life from an unthinking populace, as I shall this enigma sprung from the womb of time. He shall know. He shall remain in my keeping, a memorial to the final fall of man." "'But why do you persist in adopting this attitude?' demanded Greg, in tones of frank disgust. It is so frightfully reactionary.' The doctor pulled at his mustache. "'I have no use for such phrases,' he muttered angrily, and began striding up and down the narrow floor-space. Then leaned against the wall, his expression still critical. "'I won't have him,' the doctor's voice broke out again, and there was a kind of sob in it. I won't have the clockwork man at any price. Every nerve in my body cries out against him. He is the scandal of the ages. He must be hushed up, hidden, forgotten.' "'That is already impossible. His exploits are the talk of the village.' "'Let them talk,' cried the doctor, beating his head with his closed fist. In Heaven's name, let them talk the thing into a nine days wonder. Let them think he's the devil, anything rather than that they should know the truth. There may be a hundred explanations of this mystery, and yours may be the right one. I only know that I repudiate it. I cannot escape from the evidence of my own eyes, but there is something in me that denies the clockwork man. He sticks in my gorge. Call me what you will. I am not to be shaken with phrases. The whole of man's past shrieks out against this monstrous incubus of the future. Do not ask me to offer my own explanation of the phenomenon. I have none. In vain I have stretched my brain to its bursting point in order to solve this problem. You, apparently, are ready to accept the clockwork man as a foregone conclusion. Him alone will reveal which of us is nearer the truth. Greg smiled. After all, he remarked, allowing a suitable pause to follow the doctors in passionate words, It will not be for you or me to decide the matter. Our humble part will be to produce the object of the problem. Wiser men than ourselves will have to interpret its significance. The statement might have ended the argument for the time being, but not an accident occurred that altered the whole complexion of the affair. Greg had the wisdom to see that his friend was literally beside himself with fright and repugnance. He would have been quite content to await another opportunity for the discussion to be renewed. But at that moment the doctor gave a cry of surprise, and stooping down picked up an object from the floor. The next moment both men were standing side by side, running with feverish interest a further clue to the mystery. The object that the doctor picked up from the floor was an oblong-shaped piece of metal, almost as thin as paper, and slightly bluish in color. Upon its surface, printed in red embossed letters, was the following matter. The clockwork man. Directions for use. 1. Remove hat and wig and disclose clock. 2. Open lid of clock by means of catch. 3. Place clockwork man in recumbent position face downwards. 4. Press stops A and B well home and wind up by turning red hand. NB. Great care should be taken not to overwind. 5. The clockwork man should now sit up and take a little nourishment. This should be supplied at once in the form of two green tabloids, solids, and one blue capsule, liquids. Stop C should now be pressed, and the pressure maintained until a red light appears within the bulb X1. This registers that digestion has taken place. On no account must any adjustment be made before the red light has appeared. Any attempt to cause function on an empty stomach will result in failure. The clockwork man is now ready for adjustment. The chart should be studied with care, and a choice made from one of the types indicated. Having made a selection, proceed to arrange indicators in accordance with detailed instructions, taking the utmost care to follow the directions with absolute accuracy, as the slightest error may lead to serious confusion. A good plan is to hold the chart in the left hand and manipulate the regulators with the right, checking each adjustment as it is made. Now wind black central hand fourteen and a half times, press center knob until bell rings, close lid, replace wig and hat, and clockwork man is ready for action. The expression on Greg's face as he read these amazing instructions changed slowly from avid curiosity to puzzled alarm. He was frankly embarrassed by this sudden turn of events, and for a few moments he could make nothing at all of the matter. Yet the wording was intelligible enough, and its application to the clockwork man only too obvious. The little piece of thin metal must have slipped from his pocket during the doctor's examination, and its discovery was undoubtedly of supreme importance. But what could it mean? Greg rather prided himself upon the resiliency of his mind, but not all the elasticity of which he was capable could enable him to overcome a sudden sense of uneasiness. Was the clockwork man, after all, no more than a very elaborate and highly complex puppet? But how could that be, since he breathed and spoke and gave every sign of the possession of an individual consciousness? Considered in this new light he was even more difficult to explain. But when Greg looked up rather sheepishly, wary of meeting the doctor's eye, he beheld a sight that sent an uncomfortable thrill down his spine. For the latter lay at full length upon the couch, his chest and stomach rising and falling in the convulsions of that excessive laughter that at first sight raises a doubt of danger in the mind of the beholder, for men have died of mirth. Greg stared at his prostrate friend, and his own countenance was transfixed with alarm. Many minutes elapsed before any kind of definite sound brought a relief to the strain. For the doctor's laugh was primeval. It wracked his vitals, shook him from head to foot, began and stopped, proceeded in a series of explosions, not unlike those of the clockwork man himself, until at last it reached the throat and found expression. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! CHAPTER X. LAST APPEARANCE OF THE CLOCKWORK MAN 1. It must remain forever a question for curious speculation as to what action might have been taken by Dr. Allingham and Greg in conjunction had they been able to pursue their investigation of the clockwork man upon a thoroughgoing scale, for while their discussions were taking place the subject of them escaped from his confinement in the coal cellar. Indeed, it was hardly to be expected that he would remain there for very long. As Greg pointed out, such very delicate mechanism needed constant attention, and the unexpected was always likely to occur. There must have been some deeply rooted automatism that gradually released the clockwork man from his sleep. And having awakened, the grimy walls of the cellar no doubt struck him as distasteful. It was not to be expected that the doctor, in his hurry and panic, should have succeeded in mastering the intricacies of the clock. He had merely brought about a temporary quiescence which had gradually worked off. It had to be borne in mind also, that although the clockwork man was dependent upon adjustment in order that he should be made to work in a right fashion, it was only too plain that he could act independently and quite wrongly. The truth is that Dr. Allingham had not been able to summon the courage to make a further examination of the clockwork man, and he had permitted himself to assume that there would be no immediate developments. So far as was possible he had allowed himself that very necessary relaxation, and he had insisted upon Greg sharing it with him. The clockwork man was not quite what either of them had, alternatively, hoped or feared. From Allingham's point of view in particular, he was not the bogey of the inhuman fear which his original conduct had suggested. True, he was still an unthinkable monstrosity, an awful revelation. But since the discovery of the printed instructions, it had been possible to regard him with a little more equanimity. The clockwork man was a figment of the future, but he was not the whole future. And now that he had disappeared, there was a strong chance that he would never return, and that his personality, and all that was connected with him, would dissolve from memory of man or crystallize into a legend. That seemed a legitimate consummation of the affair, and it was the one that Dr. Allingham finally accepted. This visitation, like other alleged miracles in the past, had a meaning, and it was the meaning that mattered more than the actual miracle. To discover the significance of the clockwork man seemed to Dr. Allingham a task worthy of the highest powers of man. The doctor's conclusion may be taken as a fair expression of his character. Naturally, the effect of such a preposterous revelation upon a sluggish and doubting mind would be to arouse it to a kind of furious defence of all that man has been in the past, and a scarcely less spirited rejection of that grotesque possibility of the future which the clockwork man presented to the ordinary observer. Greg, on the other hand, may be excused on the score of his extreme youthfulness for the impetuosity of his actions. His attempt to persuade the editor of the Wide World Magazine that his version of the affair, put in the shape of a magazine story, was actually founded on fact, ended in grotesque failure. His narrative power was not doubted, but he was advised to work the story up and introduce a little humour before offering it as a contribution to some magazine that did not vouch for the truth of its tall stories. As this was beneath Greg's dignity, and he could find no one else to take him seriously, he shut up like an oyster, and just in time to forestall a suspicious attitude on the part of his friends. It was only years later, and after many experiences in this world of hard fact and difficult endeavour, that he began to share the doctor's view, and to cherish the memory of the clockwork man as a legend rich in significance. Two. One evening, Arthur Withers and Rose Lomas sat together on their favourite style talking in low whispers. The summer dusk lagged, and the air about them was so still that between their softly spoken words they could hear the talk of innumerable insects in the grass at their feet. There had been few interruptions. So familiar had their figures become in that position that it had grown to be almost a tradition among the people who passed that way during the evening to cross the style without disturbing the lovers. There are ways, too, of sitting upon a style without incommoting the casual pedestrian. This evening there had been one or two labourers with red wrinkled faces, too hungry and tired to make much comment. Then Mrs. Flack had come hurrying along with her black bag. They had to get off for her as she was not so young as she had been, and soon afterwards the curate, who beamed affably and inquired when it was to be. He was so looking forward to uniting them. But it was not to be yet. That was the burden of their subdued murmurings. It couldn't be done on Arthur's present income, and he was still less certain than ever that it could be regarded as cumulative or even permanent. Rose understood. To her country-bred mind it was marvellous that Arthur should succeed in adding up so many figures during the course of a day, even though the result did not always meet with the approval of the bank authorities. They would have to wait. It's such a responsibility, said Arthur presently. If we were to get married, I mean, I might come home with the sack any day. I shouldn't mind, protested Rose, but I couldn't bear you to feel like that about it. We shall have to wait. I wonder why I'm not clever, Arthur remarked after a long pause. Rose clutched him indignantly towards her. Oh, you are! The things you say, the things you think, I never knew! And although he shook his head vigorously, Arthur inwardly contemplated that region in his mind wherein existed all the matters that comprised a knowledge quite irrelevant to the practical affairs of life, but very useful for the purpose of living. I do have ideas, he admitted thoughtfully. I suppose I'm really what you might call an intellectual sort of chap. Dreadfully, said Rose, without a trace of disrespect, the books you read. Of course, I'm only a sort of amateur, Arthur continued modestly. But I do like books, and I can generally get at what a chap's driving at, in a way. He stared hard at a grasshopper, who seemed to be considering the possibility of an enormous leap, for his great hind legs were taught and his long feelers caressed the air. Sometimes I think the chaps who write books must be a bit like me, in a way. They seem to like the same things as I do. There's a lot about beauty in most books, and I like beauty, don't you? Yes, breathed Rose, wondering what exactly he meant. The grasshopper hopped and landed with a quite distinct thud, almost at their feet. They both looked at it without thinking about it at all, but its advent produced a pause. In the books I've read, Arthur resumed, there's generally a chap whom you might regard as being not much good at anything, and yet pretty decent. Heroes, suggested Rose, whose knowledge of literature was not very wide. Sometimes, chap's people don't understand. That's because they like beauty more than anything else, and not many people really care about beauty. They only think of it when they see a sunset, or look at pictures. If you can forget beauty, then you're all right. Nobody thinks you're strange. You don't have any difficulties. The slight stirring of Rose's body, and a sigh so low that Arthur scarcely heard it, seemed to suggest that matters were becoming rather too deep for comprehension. The grasshopper sprung again, and this time landed upon the style, where he remained for a long while as though wondering what perversion of the common sense natural to grasshoppers could have prompted him to choose so barren a landing-place. During the long pause, Rose did not see the look of strained perplexity upon Arthur's face. "'But they always get married,' he said suddenly. The chap's in books, I mean. They always get married in the end.' "'Oh, Arthur!' her hand went up to pull down his, for the moment, unwilling head. "'Oh, Arthur, we WILL get married some day.' "'You're so pretty,' he whispered. "'You're so very beautiful.' "'Oh, am I? Do you think so? I'm so glad. I'm so sorry!' Her tears gushed forth inexplicably, even to Arthur, who thought he understood so much that was difficult to understand. He had let loose his feelings without any real knowledge of its depth or that which it aroused in Rose. "'I can't bear you not to have me,' she sobbed. "'It's cruel. It ought to be arranged. People ought to understand!' Arthur was startled back to common sense. "'They don't,' he whispered, as they held one another in trembling arms. If they did, they would be like us. And then he remembered a possible sequel to the search for beauty. "'Besides,' he added in a formal whisper, "'there's the children.' "'Three.' "'A long the path that led from Bapchurch to Great Weimring, there walked two persons, slowly and with an air of having talked themselves into embarrassed silence. Their steps were gradually bringing them to the style upon which Arthur and Rose sat. "'That last remark of yours cut me to the quick,' said the doctor at last. "'I meant it too,' said Lillian firmly. "'I want you to be cut to the quick. It's our only chance.' "'Of what?' inquired the doctor, conscious of masculine stupidity. "'Of loving somehow. Oh, don't you understand? I want to care for you, but you're making it impossible. You will jest about the thing sacred to me. Your flippant tongue destroys everything. It's as I said just now. I'd like my friends to be humorous, but my lover must be serious.' "'But I can't help it,' pleaded the doctor. "'Take away my humor, and I'm frightened at what's left of myself. There's nothing but an appalling chaos.' "'Because you are afraid of life,' said Lillian. "'Men have laughed their way through the ages. Women have wept and lived. I can't share your world of assumptions and rule of thumb-laws. To me, love is a chaos, a dear confusion, a divine muddle. It's creation itself, an indefinite proceeding beginning with God.' The doctor harked back in his mind to the beginning of their talk. "'But you objected to my house,' he mused. That was how the discussion arose. And now we've got somewhere up in the stars.' Lillian glanced up at them. If only we could keep there. By their habitations are men known. A house ought to be a sort of resting place. No more. Once you elaborate it, it becomes a prison with hard labor attached. "'But where does all this lead?' pondered the doctor, half falling in with her mood. Why not make some things permanent and as good as they can be? Because they are only part of ourselves and only so many additions to the human organism, extra bits of brain. We're slowly discovering that. Humanity daren't be permanent, except in its fundamentals, and all the fundamentals have to do with living and being. Just think what would happen if the blood in your veins became permanent.' "'Death,' said the doctor, speaking from knowledge rather than from symbolical conviction. "'Well, then,' resumed Lillian triumphantly. "'Isn't all this possession of things all this wanting to have and keep a sort of death beginning from the extremities? Wouldn't it be awful if the human body didn't change if we got fixed in some way, didn't grow old, or lose our hair, or have influenza?' The doctor paused in his walk. "'How strange that Lillian should say that. It almost seems as though she must have heard about the clockwork man.' And then they both stopped, and at the same moment saw Rose and Arthur seated on the stile. "'Let's go back,' whispered Lillian, and they turned and retraced their steps. The sight of the lovers sealed their lips. Dr. Allingham struggled for a few moments with a strange sense of bigness wanting to escape. Almost it was a physical sensation, as though the nervous energy in his brain had begun to flow independently of the controls that usually guided it through the channels graven by knowledge and experience. It was Lillian who spoke next, and there was a note of pain in her voice. "'Oh, why are we troubled like this? Why can't we be like them? We shan't ever get any near happiness this way. We shan't ever be better than those two. We've simply got a few more thoughts, a little more knowledge, and it may be quite the wrong kind of knowledge.' "'Then why?' began the doctor, as though this begged the whole question. "'Oh, wait,' said Lillian. I had to have it out with you. I had to talk of these things, as though talking's any good. I couldn't let you just take me for granted. Don't you see?' "'I suppose all this talk between us is nothing but an extension of the age-long process of mating. I'm just like the primitive woman running away from her man.' The doctor paused in his walk and took hold of her elbows. "'Does that mean that you've been playing with me all this time?' "'Cocat,' smiled Lillian. Only it's not been conscious until this moment. Somehow those two reminded me. There's always this dread of capture with us women, and nowadays it's more complicated and extended. Yes, thought does give us longer life. Everything has a larger prelude. I've been afraid of your big house, which will be such a nuisance to look after. I've been afraid of a two-brief honeymoon, and then of you becoming a cheerful companion at meals and a regular winder-up of clocks.' She laughed hysterically. "'And then you might do wood carving in the winter evenings.' "'Not on your life,' roared the doctor. At the worst I shall bore you with my many times-told jests. And at the best I shall learn to put up with them,' said Lillian. That's where my sense of humor will come in.' The doctor suddenly took her in his arms. "'But you care?' he whispered. "'You consent to make me young again?' She stirred curiously in his arms, her mind newly alert. "'Oh, I never thought of that. How stupid we clever people are! I never thought that being a lover would make you young.' "'Ignoramus,' laughed the doctor. A woman's first child is always her husband. You and your epigrams. You and your thoughts!' She joined in his mirth. A little later it was before she had the last word. "'Creation,' she whispered. "'I don't believe it's happened yet. That seven days and seven nights is still going on. Man has yet to be created, and woman must help to create him. For!' "'I must be getting back,' said the clockwork man to himself, as he trundled slowly over the hump of the meadow and approached the style. "'I shall only make a muddle of things here!' There was still a touch of complaint in his voice, as though he felt sorry now to leave a world so full of pitfalls and curious adventures. Something brisker about his appearance seemed to suggest that an improvement had taken place in his working arrangements. You might have thought him rather an odd figure, stiff-necked and jerky in his gait. But there were no lapses into his early bad manner. "'I have a feeling,' he continued, placing a finger to his nose, that if I put on my top gear now I should be off like a shot.' But he did not hurry. He twisted his head gradually round, as though to embrace as much as possible in his last survey of a shapely, if limited world. "'Such a jolly little place,' he mused. "'You could have such fun and be yourself. I wonder why he reminds me so of something. Before the days of the clock, before we knew!' He sighed and suddenly stopped in order to contemplate the two figures seated together on the style. Rose was asleep in Arthur's arms. "'Don't bother,' said the clockwork man, as Arthur stirred slightly. "'I'm not going that way. I shall go back the way I came.' "'Oh!' said Arthur, smitten with embarrassment. Then I shan't see you again.' "'Not for a thousand years,' replied the clockwork man, with a slight twisting of his lip. Perhaps never.' "'Are you better now?' Arthur inquired. "'I'm working all right, if that's what you mean,' said the other, averting his eyes. Then he looked very hard at Rose, and the expression on his features altered to mild astonishment. "'Why are you holding that other person like that?' he asked. "'She's my sweetheart,' Arthur replied. "'You must explain that to me. I've forgotten the formula.' "'I'm afraid it can't be explained,' he murmured. "'It just is.' The clockwork man winked one eye slowly, and at the same time there began a faint spinning noise, very remote and detached. As Arthur looked at him he noticed another singularity. Down the smooth surface of the clockwork man's face there rolled two enormous tears. They descended each cheek simultaneously, keeping exact pace. "'I remember now,' the mechanical voice resumed, with something like a throb in it. All that old business. Before we became fixed, you know. But they had to leave it out. It would have made the clock too complicated. Besides, it wasn't necessary, you see. The clock kept you going forever. The splitting-up process went out of fashion. The splitting-up of yourself into little bits that grew up like you. Offspring they used to call them.' Arthur dimly comprehended this. "'No children,' he hazarded. The clockwork man shook his head slowly from side to side. No children. No love. Nothing but going on forever, spinning in infinite space and knowledge.' He looked directly at Arthur. "'And dreaming,' he added. "'We dream, you know.' "'Yes,' Arthur murmured, interested. "'The dream states,' explained the clockwork man, "'are the highest point in clock evolution. They are very expensive because it is a costly process to manufacture a dream. It's all rolled up in a spool, you see, and then you fit it into the clock and unroll it. The dreams are like life. Only, of course, they aren't real. And then there are the records, you know, the music records. They fit into the clock as well.' "'But do you all have clocks?' Arthur ventured. "'Are you born with them?' "'We're not born,' said the clockwork man, looking vaguely annoyed. We just are. "'We've remained the same since the first days of the clock.' He ruminated, his forehead corrugated into regular lines. "'Of course, there are the others, the makers, you know.' "'The makers?' echoed Arthur. "'Yes, you wouldn't know about them, although you're not unlike a maker yourself. Only, you wear clothes like us, and the makers don't wear clothes. That was what puzzled me about you. The look in your eyes reminded me of a maker. They came after the last wars. It's all written in history. There was a great deal of fighting and killing and blowing up and poisoning, and then the makers came, and they didn't fight. It was they who invented the clock for us, and after that every man had to have a clock fitted into him, and then he didn't have to fight any more, because he could move about in a multi-form world where there was plenty of room for everybody.' "'But didn't the other people object?' said Arthur. "'Object to what?' "'To having the clock fitted into them.' "'Would you object?' said the clockwork man, to having all your difficulties solved for you?' "'I suppose not,' Arthur admitted humbly. "'That was what the makers did for man,' resumed the other. Life had become impossible, and it was the only practical way out of the difficulty. You see, the makers were very clever, and very mild and gentle. They were quite different to ordinary human beings. To begin with, they were real.' "'But aren't you real?' Arthur could not refrain from asking. "'Of course not,' rapped out the clockwork man. "'I'm only an invention.' "'But you look real,' objected Arthur. The clockwork man emitted a faint, cacophonous caggle. We feel real when the dream-states unrolled within us, or the music records. But the makers are real, and they live in the real world. No clockwork man is allowed to get back into the real world. The clock prevents us from doing that. It was because we were such a nuisance and got in the way of the makers that they invented the clock.' "'But what is the real world like?' questioned Arthur. "'How can I know?' said the clockwork man, flapping his ears in despair. I'm fixed. I can't be anything beyond what the clock permits me to be. Only, since I've been in your world, I've had a suspicion. It's such a jolly little place. And you have women.' Arthur caught his breath. "'No women?' "'No. You see, the makers kept all the women because they were more real, and they didn't want the fighting to go on, or the world that the men wanted. So the makers took the women away from us and shut us up in the clocks and gave us the world we wanted. But they left us no loophole of escape into the real world, and we can neither laugh nor cry properly.' "'But you try,' suggested Arthur. "'It's only break down,' said the clockwork man sadly. With us laughing or crying are symptoms of breakdown. When we laugh or cry, that means that we have to go and get oiled or adjusted. Something has got out of gear. Because in our life there's no necessity for these things.' His voice trailed away and ended in a soft, tinkling sound, like sheet bells heard in the distance. During the long pause that followed, Arthur had time to recall that sense of pity for this grotesque being which had accompanied his first impression of him. But now his feeling swelled into an infinite compassion, and with it there came to him a fierce questioning fever. "'But must you always be like this?' he began, with a suppressed crying note in his voice. Is there no hope for you?' "'None,' said the clockwork man, and the word was boomed out on a hollow, brassy note. "'We are made, you see. For us creation is finished. We can only improve ourselves very slowly, but we shall never quite escape the body of this death. We've only ourselves to blame. The makers gave us our chance. They are beings of infinite patience and forbearance. But they saw that we were determined to go on as we were, and so they devised this means of giving us our wish. You see, life was a veil of tears, and men grew tired of the long journey. The makers said that if we persevered we should come to the end, and no joy's earth has not seen. But we could not wait, and we lost faith. It seemed to us that if we could do away with death and disease, with change and decay, then all our troubles would be over. So they did that for us, and we've stopped the same as we were, except that time and space no longer hinders us. He broke off and struggled with some queer kind of mechanical emotion. And now they play games with us. They wind us up and make us do all sorts of things just for fun. They try all sorts of experiments with us, and we can't help ourselves because we're in their power. And if they like they can stop the clock, and then we aren't anything at all. But that's not very kind of them, suggested Arthur. Oh, they don't hurt us. We don't feel any pain or annoyance, only a dim sort of revolt, and even that can be adjusted. You see, the makers can wring the changes endlessly with us, and there isn't any kind of being, from a great philosopher to a character out of a book, that we can't be turned into by twisting a hand. It's all very wonderful, you know. He lifted his arms up and dropped them again sharply. You wouldn't believe some of the things we can do. The clock is a most wonderful invention. And the economy. Some of the hands you see can be used for quite different purposes. Twist them so many times and you have a politician. Twist a little more and you have a financier. Press one stop slightly and we talk about the divinity of man. Press harder and there will issue from us nothing but blasphemy. Tightness grew and we are altruists. Loosen it and we are beasts. You see, generations ago it was known exactly the best and worst that man could be, and the makers like to amuse themselves by going over it again. There isn't any best or worst with them. But you, entreated Arthur, what is your life like? Again the tears flow down the clockwork man's cheeks, this time in a sequence of regular streams. We have only one hope and even that is an illusion. Sometimes we think the makers will take us seriously in the end and so perfect the mechanism that we shall be like them. But how can they? How can they? Unless, unless... Unless what? eagerly inquired Arthur, fearful of a final collapse. Unless we die, said the clockwork man, clicking slightly. Unless we consent to be broken up and put into the earth and wait while we slowly turn into little worms and then into big worms and then into clumsy, crawling creatures and finally come back again to the veil of tears. He swayed slightly, with a finger lodged against his nose. But it will take such a frightful time, you know. That's why we chose to have the clock. We were impatient. We were tired of waiting. The makers said we must have patience and we could not get patience. They said that creation really took place in the twinkling of an eye and we must have patience. Patience, echoed Arthur. Yes, I think they were right. We must have patience. We have to wait. For a few moments the clockwork man struggled along with a succession of staccato sentences and irrelevant words and finally seemed to realize that the game was up. I can't go on like this, he concluded in a shrill undertone. I ought not to have tried to talk like this. It upsets the mechanism. I wasn't meant for this sort of thing. I must go now. He began to grow dim. Arthur, instinctively polite, stretched out a hand, keeping his left arm round rows. The clockwork man veered slightly forward. He seemed to realize Arthur's intention and offered a vibrating hand. But they missed each other by several days. Oh, don't you see! The faint voice is severated. But what are we to do? said Arthur, raising his voice. Tell us what we must do to avoid following you. I don't know. The thin voice sounded like someone shouting in the distance. How should I know? It's all so difficult. But don't make it more difficult than you can help. Keep smiling. Laughter. Such a jolly little world. He was fading rapidly. Come back, shouted Arthur, scarcely knowing why he was so in earnest. You must come back and tell us. Echoed through the months. What's that? Rose exclaimed, suddenly awakened. Hark! said Arthur, clutching her tightly. Be quiet. I want to listen for something. Nine and nine pence. He heard at last very thin and distinct. And then there was stillness. The End of The Clockwork Man by E. V. Odle