Clockwork Man

“ Arthur's recent reflections returned to him, and produced a little glow in his mind. "Is there a world," he questioned, "where the problems of Time and Space are different?"
"Of course," replied the Clockwork man, clicking slightly, "quite different. The clock, you see, made man independent of Time and Space. It solved everything." ”

“ The Clockwork man shook his head slowly from side to side. "No children. No love—nothing but going on for ever, 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. ”

“ 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."
IV
"I must be getting back," said the Clockwork man to himself, as he trundled slowly over the hump of the meadow and approached the stile. "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. ”

“ But when he forced himself to look at the matter seriously, he felt that there were little grounds for the explanation that the Clockwork man was simply a dangerous lunatic. The flight at a preposterous speed, the flying leap over the hurdle, the subsequent acceleration of his run to a pace altogether beyond human possibility, convinced the young undergraduate, who was level-headed enough, although impressionable, that some other explanation would have to be found for the extraordinary occurrence. ”

“ To discover the significance of the Clockwork man seemed to Doctor 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. ”

“ Think of the triumph for the human brain. For man, thanks to [Pg 180] this stupendous invention of the clock, has actually enlarged the universe."
"A multiform world," murmured the Doctor, recollecting the Clockwork man's description, "a world of many dimensions."
"Yes," echoed Gregg enthusiastically, "a multiform 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! ”

“ The doings of the Clockwork man were at once obvious and inexplicable. It was almost impossible to intrigue people who had not actually witnessed the affair into a realisation of such extraordinary happenings. Arthur had to resort to abrupt movements of his arms and legs in order to produce an effect. But he made a great point of insistence upon the ear-flapping. ”

“ 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 [Pg 147] manifestations as compared to one of yours. It is a world of many dimensions, and every dimension is crowded with people and things. ”

“ So far as the Clockwork man's features were capable of change, there passed across them a faint expression of triumph and satisfaction. "I perceive," he remarked, "that I have indeed lapsed into a world of curiously insufficient and inefficent beings. I have fallen amongst the Unclocked. They cannot perceive Nowhere. They do not understand Nowhen. They lack senses and move about on a single plane. Henceforth, I shall act with greater confidence."
He threw the hat into infinity and produced a parrot cage with parrot.
"Stop it!" the Curate gasped. ”

“ Everything favours my original hypothesis; that he has in some way, and 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. ”

“ The sandwiches are only half cut—"
"It was not until the fifty-ninth century," continued the Clockwork man, speaking with a just perceptible click, "that man became a conjurer in real life. We have here an instance of the complete turning over of human ideas. Ancient man conjured for amusement; modern man conjures as a matter of course. Since the [Pg 99] invention of the clock and all that its action implies, including the discovery of at least three new dimensions, or fields of action, man's simplest act of an utilitarian nature may be regarded as a sort of conjuring trick. ”

“ But Gregg took little notice of the interruption. "Once you have grasped this idea of a new sort of relativity," he continued, "once you have realised 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 behaviour. Now, what is the cause of ordinary human action? It is something equally unaccountable. ”

“ Man might have tired of waiting for a so long heralded eternity, and made one out of his own material tools. The Clockwork man, now crystallised in Gregg's mind as an unforgetable figure, seemed to him to stand for a sort of rigidity of personal being as opposed to the fickleness of mere [Pg 110] flesh and blood; but the world in which he lived probably had widely different laws, if indeed it had humanly comprehensible laws at all. ”

“ The Clockwork man turned slowly and surveyed the prostrate figure. "A rudimentary race," he soliloquised, with his finger nosewards, "half blind, and painfully restricted in their movements. Evidently they have only a few senses—five at the most." He passed out into the street, carefully avoiding the body. [Pg 103] "They have a certain freedom," he continued, still nursing his nose, "within narrow limits. But they soon grow limp. And when they fall down, or lose balance, they have no choice but to embrace the earth." ”

“ 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. ”

“ If all the creatures in the world eight thousand years [Pg 181] hence are 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 man 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 Gregg, "you cannot escape from the facts. ”

“ That was Gregg's dimly conceived theory about the mystery, although, of course, he read into the interpretation a good deal of his own speculations. His imagination seized upon the clock as the possible symbol of a new counterpoint in human affairs. In his mind he saw man growing through the ages, until at last, by the aid of this mechanism, he was able to roll back the skies and reveal the vast other worlds that lay beyond, the unthinkable mysteries that lurked between the stars, all that had been sealed up in the limited brain of man since creation. ”

“ 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 man, for he could [Pg 169] be turned into something else by simply pressing a stop. Properly 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. ”

“ A clockwork man, which is broken, and you can have it back, or a tandem bicycle, an enlarging camera, a Kodak, and a magic lantern? What?" His reasoning was too subtle for the uneducated mind. The man retired, puzzled and unpaid, and Ukridge kept the clockwork toy. ”

“ In my country they grow like trees, you know—whole forests of them—galaxy of lights—necessary—illuminate multiform world."
The constable laughed gently and stroked his moustache. His theory about the condition of the individual before him slowly developed.
"You get along," he persuaded, "before there's trouble. I don't want to be 'arsh with you."
"Wait," said the Clockwork man, without altering his position, "moment of lucidity—see things as they are—begin to understand— [Pg 89] finite world—only one thing at a time. Now we've got it—a place for everything and everything in its place." ”

“ 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 ”

“ It is all very well for you to wax enthusiastic over your theories, but facts are hard masters."
"Precisely," said Gregg, who was 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 being in our own times. ”

“ He was trying so hard to rationalise the whole proceeding, to fit the Clockwork man into some remotely possible order of things; but it was a difficult process, for no sooner had he grouped certain ideas in his head than some fresh manifestation took place which rendered all previous theories futile. At the present moment, for instance, it was obvious that some new kind of structural alteration was taking place in the Clockwork man's physiognomy. The phenomenon could [Pg 151] hardly be classed in the same category as the sudden growth of beard, although there were points in common. ”

“ 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 multiform world where there was plenty of room for everybody. ”

“ DIRECTIONS FOR USING: For THINKING:—Wind the Clockwork Man under his left arm, (marked No. 1) . For SPEAKING:—Wind the Clockwork Man under his right arm, (marked No. 2) . For WALKING and ACTION:—Wind Clockwork Man in the middle of his back, (marked No. 3) . N. B.—This Mechanism is guaranteed to work perfectly for a thousand years. ”

“ That is why I have shown no surprise at your statements. The Clockwork [Pg 175] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He calls half-past two thirty-eight o'clock, and in twenty minutes from then he says it is one!
Is it that he really has grown to feel contempt for his master, and wishes to show it? They say no man is a hero to his valet; may it be that even stony-face Time himself is but a short-lived, puny mortal—a little greater than some others, that is all—to the dim eyes of this old servant of his? Has he, ticking, ticking, all these years, come at last to see into the littleness of that Time that looms so great to our awed human eyes? ”

“ I drive the wheel madly as tho’ to o’ertake them,—
Give chase without wisdom, or wit, or avail.
The clock in the workshop,—it rests not a moment;
It points on, and ticks on: Eternity—Time;
And once someone told me the clock had a meaning,—
Its pointing and ticking had reason and rhyme.
And this too he told me,—or had I been dreaming,—
The clock wakened life in one, forces unseen,
And something besides;... I forget what; Oh, ask not!
I know not, I know not, I am a machine.
At times, when I listen, I hear the clock plainly;—
The reason of old—the old meaning—is gone! ”