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—"