"It was a characteristic of the earlier stages of the human race," said the Clockwork man, as though he were addressing a class of students upon some abstruse subject, "that they exercised the arts of legerdemain, magic, illusion and so forth, purely as forms of entertainment in their leisure hours."
"Now that sounds interesting," murmured the Curate, as the other paused, although rather for matter than for breath, "it's so authoritative—as though it were a quotation from some standard work. All the same, and much as I should like to hear more—"
"It is a quotation," explained the Clockwork man solemnly, "from a work I was reading when I—when the thing happened to me. It is published by Gamages, and the price is nine and nine pence—nine and nine pence—Oh, bother—"
"I'll make a note of it," said the Curate. "But you must really excuse me now. I have so much to see to. There's the refreshments. 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 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. Certainly our forefathers, if they could see us as we are now constituted, would regard them as such—"
"So frightfully interesting," the Curate managed to interpose, "but I really cannot spare the time." He had reverted now to the alcoholic diagnosis.
"The work in question," continued the Clockwork man, without taking any notice at all of the other's impatience, "is of a satirical nature. Its purpose is to awaken people to a sense of the many absurdities in modern life that result from a too mechanical efficiency. It is all in my head. I can spin it all out, word for word—"
"Not now," hastily pleaded the Curate. "Some other time I should be glad to hear it. I am," his mouth opened very wide, "a great reader myself. And of course, as a professional conjurer, your interest in such a book would be two-fold."
"When you asked me if I were a conjurer," said the Clockwork man, "I at once recalled the book. You see, it's actually in my head. That is how we read books now. We wear them inside the clock, in the form of spools that unwind. What you have said brings it all back to me. It suddenly occurs to me that I am indeed a conjurer, and that all my actions in this backward world must be regarded in the light of magic."