"Have you got five minutes to spare?" asked the Zankiwank of Maude.
"Oh yes," she replied. "Why?"
"Let me have them at once then. A gentleman left twenty-five minutes behind him yesterday and I want to make up half-an-hour for a regular customer!" screamed Mr Swinglebinks to the bewildered children.
"But—but—O what do you mean? I have got five minutes to spare and I'll devote them to you if you like, but I can't give them to you as though they were a piece of toffee," answered Maude with much perplexity, while Willie stood awe-struck, not comprehending Mr Swinglebinks in the least.
"Time is a tough customer, you know. He is here, he is there, he is gone! He is, he was, he will be. Yet you cannot trap Time, for he is like a sunbeam," muttered the Zankiwank as though he never was short of Time.
"There, that five minutes is gone—wasted, passed into the vast vacuum of eternity! With my friend Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon I can tell you all about time! 'Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal!' Oh, I know Father Time and all his tricks. I have counted the Sands of Time. I supply him with his Hour Glass. Don't you apprehend me?"
They certainly did not. Mr Swinglebinks was more mystifying than all the other persons they had encountered put together. So they made no reply.
"I am collecting Time. Time, so my copy books told me, was meant for Slaves. I always felt sorry for the Slaves. They have no Time, you know, because it is meant for them. Lots of things are meant for you, only you won't get them. Britons never will be Slaves, so they'll never want for Time. However, as Time was meant for Slaves, I mean to let them have as much as I can. So every spare minute or two I can get, I of course send them over to them."
"It is ridiculous. You cannot measure time and cut off a bit like that," ventured Willie.
"Oh yes, you can. A client of mine was laid up the other day—in fact he was in bed for a fortnight, so, as he had no use for the time he had on hand before him, he just went to sleep and sent ten days round to me!"