And now the scene is a dingy little shop in Caledonian Market, where
things of an incredible worthlessness lie in wait for such as seek
after an impossible cheapness. In the window, as though it had always
been there and never anywhere else, lies a long, battered, discoloured
trumpet of brass that no prospective purchaser has ever been able to
sound. In it mice shelter, and dust and fluff have gathered after the
fashion of this world. The keeper of the shop is a very old man, and
he bought the shop long ago, but already this trumpet was there; he
has no idea whence it came, nor its country or origin, nor anything
about it. But once in a moment of enterprise that led to nothing he
decided to call it an Ancient Ceremonial Shawm, though he ought to
have known that whatever a shawm may be the last thing it was likely
to be is a trumpet, seeing that they are always mentioned together.
And above it hung concertinas and melodeons and cornets and tin
whistles and mouth-organs and all that rubbish of musical instruments
which delight the hearts of the poor. Until one day two blackened
young men from the big motor works in the Pansophist Road stood
outside the window and argued.
They argued about these instruments in stock and how you made these
instruments sound, because they were fond of argument, and one
asserted and the other denied that he could make every instrument in
the place sound a note. And the argument rose high, and led to a bet.
"Supposing, of course, that the instrument is in order," said Hoskin,
who was betting he could.
"That's understood," said Briggs.
And then they called as witnesses certain other young and black and
greasy men in the same employment, and after much argument and
discussion that lasted through the afternoon, they went in to the
little old dealer about teatime, just as he was putting a blear-eyed,
stinking paraffin-lamp to throw an unfavourable light upon his always
very unattractive window. And after great difficulty they arranged
that for the sum of one shilling, paid in advance, Hoskin should have
a try at every instrument in the shop that Briggs chose to indicate.
And the trial began.
The third instrument that was pitched upon by Briggs for the trial was
the strange trumpet that lay at the bottom of the window, the trumpet
that you, who have read the Introduction, know was the trumpet for the
Last Trump. And Hoskin tried and tried again, and then, blowing
desperately, hurt his ears. But he could get no sound from the
trumpet. Then he examined the trumpet more carefully and discovered
the mice and fluff and other things in it, and demanded that it should
be cleaned; and the old dealer, nothing loth, knowing they were used
to automobile-horns and such-like instruments, agreed to let them
clean it on condition that they left it shiney. So the young men,
after making a suitable deposit (which, as you shall hear, was
presently confiscated), went off with the trumpet, proposing to clean
it next day at the works and polish it with the peculiarly excellent
brass polish employed upon the honk-honk horns of the firm. And this
they did, and Hoskin tried again.
But he tried in vain. Whereupon there arose a great argument about the
trumpet, whether it was in order or not, whether it was possible for
any one to sound it. For if not, then clearly it was outside the
condition of the bet.
Others among the young men tried it, including two who played wind
instruments in a band and were musically knowing men. After their own
failure they were strongly on the side of Hoskin and strongly against
Briggs, and most of the other young men were of the same opinion.
"Not a bit of it," said Briggs, who was a man of resource. "_I_'ll
show you that it can be sounded."
And taking the instrument in his hand, he went towards a peculiarly
powerful foot blow-pipe that stood at the far end of the toolshed.
"Good old Briggs!" said one of the other young men, and opinion veered
about.
Briggs removed the blow-pipe from its bellows and tube, and then
adjusted the tube very carefully to the mouthpiece of the trumpet.
Then with great deliberation he produced a piece of bees-waxed string
from a number of other strange and filthy contents in his pocket and
tied the tube to the mouthpiece. And then he began to work the treadle
of the bellows.
"Good old Briggs!" said the one who had previously admired him.
And then something incomprehensible happened.
It was a flash. Whatever else it was, it was a flash. And a sound that
seemed to coincide exactly with the flash.
Afterwards the young men agreed to it that the trumpet blew to bits.
It blew to bits and vanished, and they were all flung upon their
faces--not backward, be it noted, but on their faces--and Briggs was
stunned and scared. The toolshed windows were broken and the various
apparatus and cars around were much displaced, and _no traces of the
trumpet were ever discovered_.
That last particular puzzled and perplexed poor Briggs very much. It
puzzled and perplexed him the more because he had had an impression,
so extraordinary, so incredible, that he was never able to describe it
to any other living person. But his impression was this: that the
flash that came with the sound came, not from the trumpet but to it,
that it smote down to it and took it, and that its shape was in the
exact likeness of a hand and arm of fire.