That the Clockwork man was likely to prove a source of embarrassment
to him in more ways than one was demonstrated to the Doctor almost
as soon as they entered the house. Mrs. Masters, who was laying the
supper, regarded the visitor with a slight huffiness. He obtruded upon
her vision as an extra meal for which she was not prepared. And the
Doctor's manner was not reassuring. He seemed, for the time being, to
lack that urbanity which usually enabled him to smooth over the awkward
situations in life. It was unfortunate, perhaps, that he should have
allowed Mrs. Masters to develop an attitude of distrust, but he was
nervous, and that was sufficient to put the good lady on her guard.
"Lay an extra place, will you, Mrs. Masters," the Doctor had requested
as they entered the room.
"I'm afraid you'll 'ave to make do," was the sharp rejoinder, for there
was not much on the table, and the Doctor favoured a light supper.
"There's watercress," she added, defensively.
"Care for watercress?" enquired the Doctor, trying hard to glance
casually at his guest.
The Clockwork man stared blankly at his interrogator. "Watercress," he
remarked, "is not much in my line. Something solid, if you have it, and
as much as possible. I feel a trifle faint."
He sat down rather hurriedly, on the couch, and the Doctor scanned him
anxiously for symptoms. But there were none of an alarming character.
He had not removed his borrowed hat and wig.
"Bring up anything you can find," the Doctor whispered in Mrs. Masters'
ear, "my friend has had rather a long journey. Anything you can find.
Surely we have things in tins."
His further suggestions were drowned by an enormous hyæna-like yawn
coming from the direction of the couch. It was followed by another,
even more prodigious. The room fairly vibrated with the Clockwork
man's uncouth expression of omnivorous appetite.
"Bless us!" Mrs. Masters could not help saying. "Manners!"
"Is there anything you particularly fancy?" enquired the Doctor.
"Eggs," announced the figure on the couch. "Large quantities of
eggs--infinite eggs."
"See what you can do in the matter of eggs,'' urged the Doctor, and
Mrs. Masters departed, with the light of expedition in her eye, for to
feed a hungry man, even one whom she regarded with suspicion, was part
of her religion.
"I'm afraid I put you to great inconvenience," murmured the visitor,
still yawning and rolling about on the couch. "The fact is, I ought to
be able to _produce_ things--but that part of me seems to have gone
wrong again. I did make a start--but it was only a flash in the pan. So
sorry if I'm a nuisance."
"Not at all," said the Doctor, endeavouring without much success to
treat his guest as an ordinary being, "I am to blame. I ought to have
realised that you would require nourishment. But, of course, I am still
in the dark--"
He paused abruptly, aware that certain peculiar changes were taking
place in the physiognomy of the Clockwork man. His strange organism
seemed to be undergoing a series of exceedingly swift and complicated
physical and chemical processes. His complexion changed colour rapidly,
passing from its usual pallor to a deep greenish hue, and then to a
hectic flush. Concurrent with this, there was a puzzling movement of
the corpuscles and cells just beneath the skin.
The Doctor was scarcely as yet in the mind to study these phenomena
accurately. At the back of his mind there was the thought of Mrs.
Masters returning with the supper. He tried to resume ordinary speech,
but the Clockwork man seemed abstracted, and the unfamiliarity of his
appearance increased every second. It seemed to the Doctor that he had
remembered a little dimple on the middle of the Clockwork man's chin,
but now he couldn't see the dimple. It was covered with something
brownish and delicate, something that was rapidly spreading until it
became almost obvious.
"You see," exclaimed the Doctor, making a violent effort to ignore his
own perceptions, "it's all so unexpected. I'm afraid I shan't be able
to render you much assistance until I know the actual facts, and even
then--"
He gripped the back of a chair. It was no longer possible for him to
deceive himself about the mysterious appearance on the Clockwork man's
chin. He was growing a beard--swiftly and visibly. Already some of the
hairs had reached to his collar.
"I _beg_ your pardon," said the Clockwork man, suddenly becoming
conscious of the hirsute development. "Irregular growth--most
inconvenient--it's due to my condition--I'm all to pieces, you
know--things happen spontaneously." He appeared to be struggling hard
to reverse some process within himself, but the beard continued to grow.
The Doctor found his voice again. "Great heavens," he burst out, in a
hysterical shout. "Stop it. You _must_ stop it--I simply can't stand
it."
He had visions of a room full of golden brown beard. It was the most
appalling thing he had ever witnessed, and there was no trickery about
it. The beard had actually grown before his eyes, and it had now
reached to the second button of the Clockwork man's waistcoat. And, at
any moment, Mrs. Masters might return!
Suddenly, with a violent effort involving two sharp flappings of his
ears, the Clockwork man mastered his difficulty. He appeared to set
in action some swift depilatory process. The beard vanished as if by
magic. The doctor collapsed into a chair.
"You mustn't do anything like that again," he muttered hoarsely.
"You--must--let--me--know--when--you--feel it--coming on."
In spite of his agitation, it occurred to him that he must be
prepared for worse shocks than this. It was no use giving way to
panic. Incredible as had been the cricketing performance, the magical
flight, and now this ridiculously sudden growth of beard, there were
indications about the Clockwork man that pointed to still further
abnormalities. The Doctor braced himself up to face the worst; he had
no theory at all with which to explain these staggering manifestations,
and it seemed more than likely that the ghastly serio-comic figure
seated on the couch would presently offer some explanation of his own.
A few moments later Mrs. Masters entered the room bearing a tray with
the promised meal. True to her instinct, the good soul must have
searched the remotest corners of her pantry in order to provide what
she evidently regarded as but an apology of a repast. Little did she
know for what Brobdingnagian appetite she was catering! At the sight of
the six gleaming white eggs in their cups, the guest made a movement
expressive of the direction of his desire, if not of very sanguine
hope of their fulfilment. Besides eggs, there were several piles of
sandwiches, bread and butter, and assorted cakes.
Mrs. Masters had scarcely murmured her apologies for the best she could
do at such short notice, and retired, than the Clockwork man set to
with an avidity that appalled and disgusted the Doctor. The six eggs
were cracked and swallowed in as many seconds. The rest of the food
disappeared in a series of jerks, accompanied by intense vibration of
the jaws; the whole process of swallowing resembling the pulsations
of the cylinders of a petrol engine. So rapid were the vibrations,
that the whole of the lower part of the Clockwork man's face was only
visible as a multiplicity of blurred outlines.
The commotion subsided as abruptly as it had begun, and the Doctor
enquired, with as much grace as his outraged instincts would allow,
whether he could offer him any more.
"I have still," said the Clockwork man, locating his feeling by placing
a hand sharply against his stomach, "an emptiness here."
"Dear me," muttered the Doctor, "you find us rather short at present.
I must think of something." He went on talking, as though to gain
time. "It's quite obvious, of course, that you need more than an
average person. I ought to have realised. There would be exaggerated
metabolism--naturally, to sustain exaggerated function. But, of course,
the--er--motive force behind this extraordinary efficiency of yours is
still a mystery to me. Am I right in assuming that there is a sort of
mechanism?"
"It makes everything go faster," observed the Clockwork man, "and more
accurately."
"Quite," murmured the Doctor. He was leaning forward now, with his
elbows resting on the table and his head on one side. "I can see
that. There are certain things about you that strike one as being
obvious. But what beats me at present is how--and where--" he looked,
figuratively speaking, at the inside of the Clockwork man, "I mean, in
what part of your anatomy the--er--motive force is situated."
"The functioning principle," said the Clockwork man, "is distributed
throughout, but the clock--" His words ran on incoherently for a
few moments and ended in an abrupt explosion that nearly lifted
him out of his seat. "Beg pardon--what I mean to say is that the
clock--wallabaloo--wum--wum--"
"I am prepared to take that for granted," put in the Doctor, coughing
slightly.
"You must understand," resumed the Clockwork man, making a rather
painful effort to fold his arms and look natural, "you must
understand--click--click--that it is difficult for me to carry on
conversation in this manner. Not only are my speech centres rather
disordered--G-r-r-r-r-r-r--but I am not really accustomed to expressing
my thoughts in this way (here there was a loud spinning noise,
like a sewing machine, and rising to a rapid crescendo). My brain
is--so--constituted that action--except in a multiform world--is bound
to be somewhat spasmodic--Pfft--Pfft--Pfft. In fact--Pfft--it is
only--Pfft--because I am in such a hope--hope--hopeless condition that
I am able to converse with you at all."
"I see," said Allingham, slowly, "it is because you are, so to speak,
temporarily incapacitated, that you are able to come down to the level
of our world."
"It's an extra--ordinary world," exclaimed the other, with a sudden
vehemence that seemed to bring about a spasm of coherency. "I can't get
used to it. Everything is so elementary and restricted. I wouldn't have
thought it possible that even in the twentieth century things would
have been so backward. I always thought that this age was supposed to
be the beginning. History says the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
were full of stir and enquiry. The mind of man was awakening. But it is
strange how little has been done. I see no signs of the great movement.
Why, you have not yet grasped the importance of the machines."
"We have automobiles and flying machines," interrupted Allingham,
weakly.
"And you treat them like slaves," retorted the Clockwork man. "That
fact was revealed to me by your callous behaviour towards your motor
car. It was not until man began to respect the machines that his real
history begun. What ideas have you about the relation of man to the
outer cosmos?"
"We have a theory of relativity," Allingham ventured.
"Einstein!" The Clockwork man's features altered just perceptibly to an
expression of faint surprise. "Is he already born?"
"He is beginning to be understood. And some attempt is being made to
popularise his theory. But I don't know that I altogether agree."
The Doctor hesitated, aware of the uselessness of dissension upon such
a subject where his companion was concerned. Another idea came into his
head. "What sort of a world is yours? To look at, I mean. How does it
appear to the eye and touch?"
"It is a _multiform_ world," replied the Clockwork man (he had managed
to fold his arms now, and apart from a certain stiffness his attitude
was fairly normal). "Now, your world has a certain definite shape. That
is what puzzles me so. There is one of everything. One sky, and one
floor. Everything is fixed and stable. At least, so it appears to me.
And then you have objects placed about in certain positions, trees,
houses, _lamp-posts_--and they never alter their positions. It reminds
me of the scenery they used in the old theatres. Now, in my world
everything is constantly moving, and there is not one of everything,
but always there are a great many of each thing. The universe has no
definite shape at all. The sky does not look, like yours does, simply
a sort of inverted bowl. It is a shapeless void. But what strikes me
so forcibly about your world is that everything appears to be leading
somewhere, and you expect always to come to the end of things. But in
my world everything goes on for ever."
"But the streets and houses?" hazarded Allingham, "aren't they like
ours?"
The Clockwork man shook his head. "We have houses, but they are not
full of things like yours are, and we don't _live_ in them. They
are simply places where we go when we take ourselves to pieces or
overhaul ourselves. They are--" his mouth opened very wide, "the
nearest approach to fixed objects that we have, and we regard them as
jumping-off places for successive excursions into various dimensions.
Streets are of course unnecessary, since the only object of a street
is to lead from one place to another, and we do that sort of thing in
other ways. Again, our houses are not placed together in the absurd
fashion of yours. They are anywhere and everywhere, and nowhere and
nowhen. For instance, I live in the day before yesterday and my friend
in the day after to-morrow."
"I begin to grasp what you mean," said Allingham, digging his chin into
his hands, "as an idea, that is. It seems to me that, to borrow the
words of Shakespeare, I have long dreamed of such a kind of man as you.
But now that you are before me, in the--er--flesh, I find myself unable
to accept you."
The unfortunate Doctor was trying hard to substitute a genuine
interest in the Clockwork man for a feeling of panic, but he was not
very successful. "You seem to me," he added, rather lamely, "so very
theoretical."
And then he remembered the sudden growth of beard, and decided that it
was useless to pursue that last thin thread of suspicion in his mind.
For several seconds he said nothing at all, and the Clockwork man
seemed to take advantage of the pause in order to wind himself up to a
new pitch of coherency.
"It would be ridiculous," he began, after several thoracic
bifurcations, "for me to explain myself more fully to you. Unless
you had a clock you couldn't possibly understand. But I hope I have
made it clear that my world is a multiform world. It has a thousand
manifestations as compared to one of yours. It is a world of many
dimensions, and every dimension is crowded with people and things. Only
they don't get in each other's way, like you do, because there are
always other dimensions at hand."
"That I can follow," said the Doctor, wrinkling his brows, "that seems
to me fairly clear. I can just grasp that, as the hypothesis of another
sort of world. But what I don't understand, what I can't begin to
understand, is how you work, how this mechanism which you talk about
functions."
He delivered this last sentence rather in the manner of an ultimatum,
and the Clockwork man seemed to brood over it for a few seconds. He
was apparently puzzled by the question, and hard mechanical lines
appeared upon his forehead and began slowly chasing one another out of
existence. It reminded the Doctor of Venetian blinds being pulled up
and down very rapidly.
"Well," the reply was shot out at last, "how do _you_ work?" The
repartee of the Clockwork man was none the less effective for being
suspended, as it were, for a second or two before delivery.
The doctor gasped slightly and released his hold upon a mustard pot. He
came up to the rebound with a new suggestion.
"Now, that's a good idea. We might arrive at something by comparison. I
never thought of that." He grasped the mustard pot again and tried to
arrange certain matters in his mind. "It's a little difficult to know
where to begin," he temporised.
"Begin at the end, if you like," suggested the Clockwork man, affably.
"It's all the same to me. First and last, upside or inside, front or
back--it all conveys the same idea to me."
"We are creatures of action," hazarded the Doctor, with the air of
a man embarking upon a long mental voyage, "we act from certain
motives. There is a principle known as Cause and Effect. Everything is
related. Every action has its equal and opposite re-action. Nobody can
do anything, or even think anything, without producing some change,
however slight, in the general flow of things. Every movement that
we make, almost every thought that passes through our minds, starts
another ripple upon the surface of time, upon this endless stream of
cause and effect."
"Ah," interrupted the Clockwork man, placing a finger to the side of
his nose, "I begin to understand. You work upon a different principle,
or rather an antiquated principle. You see, all that has been solved
now. The clock works all that out in advance. It calculates ahead of
our conscious selves. No doubt we still go through the same processes,
_sub-consciously_, all such processes that relate to Cause and Effect.
But we, that is, ourselves, are the resultant of such calculations, and
the only actions we are conscious of are those which are expressed as
_consequents_."
Allingham passed a hand across his forehead. "It all seems so
feasible," he remarked, "once you grasp the mechanism. But what I don't
understand--"
Here, however, the discussion came to an abrupt conclusion, for
something was happening to the Clockwork man.