The whole thing started when the clock on the Metropolitan Tower
began to run backward. It was not a graceful proceeding. The hands
had been moving onward in their customary deliberate fashion,
slowly and thoughtfully, but suddenly the people in the offices
near the clock's face heard an ominous creaking and groaning.
There was a slight, hardly discernible shiver through the tower,
and then something gave with a crash. The big hands on the clock
began to move backward.
Immediately after the crash all the creaking and groaning ceased,
and instead, the usual quiet again hung over everything. One or
two of the occupants of the upper offices put their heads out into
the halls, but the elevators were running as usual, the lights
were burning, and all seemed calm and peaceful. The clerks and
stenographers went back to their ledgers and typewriters, the
business callers returned to the discussion of their errands,
and the ordinary course of business was resumed.
Arthur Chamberlain was dictating a letter to Estelle Woodward,
his sole stenographer. When the crash came he paused, listened,
and then resumed his task.
It was not a difficult one. Talking to Estelle Woodward was at
no time an onerous duty, but it must be admitted that Arthur
Chamberlain found it difficult to keep his conversation strictly
upon his business.
He was at this time engaged in dictating a letter to his principal
creditors, the Gary & Milton Company, explaining that their demand
for the immediate payment of the installment then due upon his office
furniture was untimely and unjust. A young and budding engineer in
New York never has too much money, and when he is young as Arthur
Chamberlain was, and as fond of pleasant company, and not too
fond of economizing, he is liable to find all demands for payment
untimely and he usually considers them unjust as well. Arthur
finished dictating the letter and sighed.
"Miss Woodward," he said regretfully, "I am afraid I shall never
make a successful man."
Miss Woodward shook her head vaguely. She did not seem to take his
remark very seriously, but then, she had learned never to take any of
his remarks seriously. She had been puzzled at first by his manner of
treating everything with a half-joking pessimism, but now ignored it.
She was interested in her own problems. She had suddenly decided
that she was going to be an old maid, and it bothered her. She
had discovered that she did not like any one well enough to marry,
and she was in her twenty-second year.
She was not a native of New York, and the few young men she had met
there she did not care for. She had regretfully decided she was too
finicky, too fastidious, but could not seem to help herself. She
could not understand their absorption in boxing and baseball and
she did not like the way they danced.
She had considered the matter and decided that she would have to
reconsider her former opinion of women who did not marry. Heretofore
she had thought there must be something the matter with them.
Now she believed that she would come to their own estate, and
probably for the same reason. She could not fall in love and she
wanted to.
She read all the popular novels and thrilled at the love-scenes
contained in them, but when any of the young men she knew became
in the slightest degree sentimental she found herself bored, and
disgusted with herself for being bored. Still, she could not help it,
and was struggling to reconcile herself to a life without romance.
She was far too pretty for that, of course, and Arthur Chamberlain
often longed to tell her how pretty she really was, but her
abstracted air held him at arms' length.
He lay back at ease in his swivel-chair and considered, looking at
her with unfeigned pleasure. She did not notice it, for she was so
much absorbed in her own thoughts that she rarely noticed anything
he said or did when they were not in the line of her duties.
"Miss Woodward," he repeated, "I said I think I'll never make a
successful man. Do you know what that means?"
She looked at him mutely, polite inquiry in her eyes.
"It means," he said gravely, "that I'm going broke. Unless something
turns up in the next three weeks, or a month at the latest, I'll
have to get a job."
"And that means--" she asked.
"All this will go to pot," he explained with a sweeping gesture. "I
thought I'd better tell you as much in advance as I could."
"You mean you're going to give up your office--and me?" she asked,
a little alarmed.
"Giving up you will be the harder of the two," he said with a smile,
"but that's what it means. You'll have no difficulty finding a new
place, with three weeks in which to look for one, but I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry, too, Mr. Chamberlain," she said, her brow puckered.
She was not really frightened, because she knew she could get
another position, but she became aware of rather more regret than
she had expected.
There was silence for a moment.
"Jove!" said Arthur, suddenly. "It's getting dark, isn't it?"
It was. It was growing dark with unusual rapidity. Arthur went to
his window, and looked out.
"Funny," he remarked in a moment or two. "Things don't look just
right, down there, somehow. There are very few people about."
He watched in growing amazement. Lights came on in the streets
below, but none of the buildings lighted up. It grew darker and
darker.
"It shouldn't be dark at this hour!" Arthur exclaimed.
Estelle went to the window by his side.
"It looks awfully queer," she agreed. "It must be an eclipse
or something."
They heard doors open in the hall outside, and Arthur ran out. The
halls were beginning to fill with excited people.
"What on earth's the matter?" asked a worried stenographer.
"Probably an eclipse," replied Arthur. "Only it's odd we didn't
read about it in the papers."
He glanced along the corridor. No one else seemed better informed
than he, and he went back into his office.
Estelle turned from the window as he appeared.
"The streets are deserted," she said in a puzzled tone. "What's
the matter? Did you hear?"
Arthur shook his head and reached for the telephone.
"I'll call up and find out," he said confidently. He held the
receiver to his ear. "What the--" he exclaimed. "Listen to this!"
A small-sized roar was coming from the receiver. Arthur hung up
and turned a blank face upon Estelle.
"Look!" she said suddenly, and pointed out of the window.
All the city was now lighted up, and such of the signs as they
could see were brilliantly illumined. They watched in silence.
The streets once more seemed filled with vehicles. They darted along,
their headlamps lighting up the roadway brilliantly. There was,
however, something strange even about their motion. Arthur and
Estelle watched in growing amazement and perplexity.
"Are--are you seeing what I am seeing?" asked Estelle
breathlessly. "_I_ see them _going backward_!"
Arthur watched, and collapsed into a chair.
"For the love of Mike!" he exclaimed softly.