"It was not so, it is not so, and, indeed, God forbid it should be so."
I
At the foot of a hill, about five miles from Great Wymering, Doctor
Allingham suddenly jammed down the brake of his car, got out, and began
pacing the dusty road. Gregg remained seated in the car with his arms
folded.
"Aren't you going any further?" he enquired, anxiously.
"No, I'm not," grumbled the Doctor, "I've had enough of this wild-goose
chase. And besides, it's nearly dinner time."
"But just now you were inclined to think differently," said Gregg,
reproachfully.
"Well, I admit I was rather mystified by that hat and wig. But when you
come to rationalise the thing, what is there in it?" The Doctor was
taking long strides and flourishing his leather gloves in the air. "How
could such a thing be? How can anybody in his right senses entertain
the notion that Dunn Brothers are still in existence two thousand years
hence? And the Clarkson business. It's absurd on the face of it."
"Even an absurdity," said Gregg, quietly, "may contain the positive
truth. I admit it's ludicrous, but we both agree that it's
inexplicable. We have to fall back on conjecture. To my mind there is
something suggestive about that persistency in the future of things
familiar to us. Suppose they have found a way of keeping things going,
just as they are? Hasn't the aim of man always been the permanence
of his institutions? And wouldn't it be characteristic of man, as we
know him to-day, that he should hold on to purely utilitarian things,
conveniences? In this age we sacrifice everything to utility. That's
because we're getting somewhere in a hurry. Modern life is the last lap
in man's race against Time."
He paused, as though to adjust the matter in his mind. "But suppose
Time stopped. Or, rather, suppose man caught up with Time, raced the
universal enemy, tracked him to his lair? That would account for the
names being the same. Dunn still breathes and Clarkson endures, or
their descendants. At any rate, the _idea_ of them persists. Perhaps
this clock that they wear abolished death and successive generations.
Of course, it seems like a joke to us, but we've got to drop our sense
of humour for the time being."
"But how could it be?" exclaimed Allingham, kicking a loose stone in
his walk. "This clock, I mean. It's--" He fumbled hopelessly for words
with which to express new doubts. "What _is_ this clock?"
"It's an instrument," rejoined Gregg, leaning over the side of the
car. "Evidently it has some sort of effect upon the fundamental
processes of the human organism. That's clear, to me. Probably it
replaces some of the ordinary functions and alters others. One gets
a sort of glimmer--of an immense speeding up of the entire organism,
and the brain of man developing new senses and powers of apprehension.
They would have all sorts of second sights and subsidiary senses.
They would feel their way about in a larger universe, creep into all
sorts of niches and corners unknown to us, because of their different
construction."
"Yes, yes, I can follow all that," said Allingham, biting his
moustache, "but let's talk sense."
"In a matter like this," put in Gregg, "sense is at a premium. What we
have to do is to consult our intuitions."
Allingham frowned. His intuitions, nowadays, were few and far between.
"When you get to my age, Gregg, you'll have something else to do
besides consult your intuitions. The fact is, you _want_ all these
wonderful things to happen. You have a flair for the unexpected, like
all children and adolescents. But I tell you, the Clockwork man is a
myth, and I think you ought to respect my opinion."
"Even if he's a myth," interrupted Gregg, "he is still worth
investigating. What annoys me is your positive antagonism to the idea
that he might be possible. You seem to want to go out of your way to
prove me in the wrong. I may add, that once a man has ceased to believe
in the impossible he is damned."
Allingham shot a look of veiled anger at the other, and prepared to
re-enter the car.
"Well, you prove yourself in the right," he muttered, "and then I'll
apologise. I'm going to let the Clockwork man drop. I've got other
things to think about. And I don't mind telling you that if the
Clockwork man turns out to be all that you claim for him, I shall still
wish him at the other end of the earth."
"Which is probably where he is now," remarked Gregg, with a slight
bantering note in his voice.
"Well, let him stop there," growled Allingham, restarting the car with
a vicious jerk, "let someone else bother their heads about him. I don't
want him. I tell you I don't care a brass farthing about the future of
the human race. I'm quite content to take the good and bad in life, and
I want it to go on in the same damned old way."
Gregg beat his fist into his open palm. "But that's just what has
happened," he exclaimed, "they've found a way of keeping on just the
same. That explains the Clarkson business. If the clock is what I think
it is, that precisely is its function."
Allingham shouted out some impatient rejoinder, but it was drowned in
the rising roar of the engine as they sped along the road.