"How so?"
"If your majesty will acknowledge that one must think in order to play a game of chess, then the artificial man in my possession is able to think."
"Where have you that man with the thinking head?"
"Sire, I have caused my assistants to set it up in the adjoining room. But I must observe that this man was not made by myself; it is the master-piece of the late Mr. Kempeler, a well-known mechanician, of whose son I bought my slave."
"Ah," said Napoleon, laughing, "do you not know that the trade in human chattels is now prohibited in our civilized states? But let us see your slave.—Come, gentlemen," added Napoleon, turning toward his marshals and adjutants, "let us look at the work of this modern Prometheus." He walked toward the door, but, before leaving the cabinet, he turned to the chamberlain. "When the Duke de Cadore comes bring me word immediately." He then stepped into the adjoining room and the marshals and Mr. Mälzl followed him.
In the middle of the room, at a small table, on which was a chess-board, sat a neatly-dressed male figure, looking like a boy fourteen years old.
"That, then, is the celebrated chess-player," remarked Napoleon, advancing quickly. "The face is made of wax, but who will warrant that there is not a human countenance concealed under it, and that this prepossessing and well-proportioned form does not really consist of flesh and blood?"
"Sire, this will convince your majesty that such is not the case," said Mälzl, touching a spring on the neck of the automaton, and taking the head from the trunk.
"You are right," exclaimed Napoleon, laughing, "I am fully convinced. It is true men are walking about without heads, but they are not so honest as to reveal the fact so openly as your automaton does."
"Sire, will your majesty grant the favor of playing a game of chess with him?" asked Mälzl, fastening on again the head of the automaton.