The whole of the feather-bed was out in the courtyard now, and the Great Sloth climbed slowly back over it into its room to find out who had dared to outrage its Slothful Majesty.
Lucy waited, breathless with hope and fear, as the Great Sloth blundered back into the inner room of its temple. It did not come out again. There was a silence, and then a creaking sound and the voice of the Great Sloth saying:
'No, no, no, I won't. Let go, I tell you.' Then more sounds of creaking and the sound of metal on metal.
She crept to the arch and peeped round it.
The room that had been full of feather-bed was now full of wheels and cogs and bands and screws and bars. It was full, in fact, of a large and complicated machine. And the handle of that machine was being turned by the Great Sloth itself.
'Let me go,' said the Great Sloth, gnashing its great teeth. 'I won't work!'
'You must,' said a purring voice from the heart of the machinery. 'You wished for me, and now you have to work me eight hours a day. It is the law'; it was the machine itself which spoke.
'I'll break you,' said the Sloth.
'I am unbreakable,' said the machine with gentle pride.
'This is your doing,' said the Sloth, turning its furious eyes on Lucy in the doorway. 'You wait till I catch you!' And all the while it had to go on turning that handle.