For a long time I aimlessly gazed upon this beautiful garden. The warm moist fragrant atmosphere was not conducive to hurry or to excitement. But finally even the beauties of the view palled upon me, and I returned to the blue couch.
Just then Doggo ushered into the room, with great deference, four ant-men slightly smaller than himself, but more refined looking than he, if one can appreciate such differences among ants. That is, they were more slender and delicate, like machines built for precision rather than for strength.
They evidently were a bit afraid of me, for after eyeing me furtively from the door they appeared to confer with Doggo, though not an audible word passed between them. To assure them that I was perfectly harmless, Doggo walked over to me and permitted himself to be patted; after which the committee drew near and inspected me carefully, agitating their antennae at each newly discovered peculiarity.
They appeared chiefly perplexed by my forehead and my back, to examine which, they lifted up my toga. They counted my fingers several times, and then counted my toes.
But the thing about me which amazed them the most was my ears. These they studied for a long time, with much inaudible consultation, as I judged by the motions of their antennae.
Finally they took their departure, and Doggo came to me bristling with excitement, and apparently having much important information to impart; but, alas, he did not know my language, and he had no language at all. I patted him again, but this time it did not soothe him, for he broke away from me impatiently and returned to his station by the door.
Left to myself, I fell to studying the meter again, watching the counter-clockwise rotation of its hands. Even the left pointer had moved a bit since early morning.
Now I noticed, what I might have surmised on the analogy of an earthly gas meter, that each graduation of the central dial represented one complete revolution of the pointer on its right; and this principle presumably extended to the dial on its left. Then I counted chimpanzees again, and found that the right hand pointer was still rotating counterclockwise at the rate of about fifty chimpanzees per graduation. Counterclockwise! Why, perhaps this machine was a clock!
I made a hasty mental calculation: “One graduation equals fifty seconds. Twelve graduations—one complete rotation—equal six hundred seconds—ten minutes. Thus one graduation of the middle dial represents ten minutes, and its complete circuit, represents two hours. By the same token, a complete circuit of the left dial would represent twenty-four hours—one day!”
My guess was apparently correct.