“You are Roger Bacon,” said I.
“To be sure!” was his reply; “at the same time allow me the pleasure of introducing you to this young lady friend of mine, Miss Phantasia.”
I happened to be in that frame of mind to which one might apply the Horatian nil mirari. Nothing of what I saw surprised me, not even the appearance in the flesh of a man like Bacon, who had taken his departure from our planet some five hundred years ago. I therefore simply accepted his obliging offer, and began by asking for an explanation of the figures and words on the tower.
“On yonder tower, over the clock-face?” answered he. “Why, that means simply this, that we have arrived at the first day of the new year 2071.”
“But what is the time? I see so many hands and figures on the clock, that I am perfectly bewildered.”
“What kind of time is it you want to know?” asked he in reply; “true, mean, or
Aleutic Time?
for each of these has its own set of hands and figures.”
“I know full well,” said I, “what true time is, also what is understood by mean time, but what on earth is meant by aleutic time?”