"Ah, that is fine, isn't it, my friends? A very satisfactory enemy turnover! Very satisfactory, indeed!" the voice of the speaker rang out, with gloating pleasure. "You see that long tube jutting above the floor. That is the tip of the Subterrain! You all know, of course, about this marvelous engine. It is generally conceded to be the greatest invention of modern times. No other contrivance has ever produced half so great a turnover. It was the creation of the renowned engineer Hizz Crazz, who, about fifty years ago, decided that war was getting too tame, since it was fought all on the surface of the galleries. Why not make a machine, he asked, which would travel underground as our submersible vessels travel beneath rivers and lakes?
"The result was the Subterrain. The principles behind it are admirably simple; the weapon, which is a relatively slender steel cylinder accommodating five or six men, gradually works its way through a narrow excavation already prepared for it by a machine like a powerful well-borer—the 'cave-blaster,' which operates by the power of Mulflar, and has made it possible to dig our gigantic war-galleries.
"But let me go on to tell about the Subterrain itself. Affixed to its prow is an electric dredge which tears up the earth before it and deposits it behind; by this means, the Subterrain digs its way forward at the rate of a quarter of a mile an hour. Meanwhile, its crew, confined in their narrow compartment, are kept alive by air supplied through long connecting tubes, in the manner of divers. A delicate instrument, with a radio attachment, informs the men when they are in the neighborhood of an enemy cavern—for, of course, the machine is never used except in wartime. Being within a few feet of a hostile gallery, the Subterrain halts, retreats a short distance into the tunnel it has bored, and launches a Mulflar torpedo—whose effects, as you have observed, are terrible beyond description."
It seemed to me that I had now seen enough of the Phonoscope exhibition for one day, and I began to glance about me for the most inconspicuous way of retreating. But since a crowd of new arrivals were coming toward me down the aisle, the moment did not seem opportune.
"Great as are the merits of the Subterrain," the speaker continued, "it cannot be denied that it has some minor drawbacks. One of these is that there is no longer any security for the civilian population during wartime. One never knows when a Subterrain, boring unnoticed beneath one's feet, may launch a Mulflar bomb directly at one. It is impossible to say how many thousands of noncombatants have been turned over in this manner since the war began. Even First Class Citizens have not been spared—an intolerable form of barbarity, which will now—thank the Lord!—be ended by a humanitarian treaty which has just been negotiated, confining attacks of the Subterrains to regions occupied by Second and Third Class Citizens."
It was at this point that I lost interest in the speech. The newcomers having by this time reached their seats, I had risen to leave ... when my eyes were riveted on a chalk-face just appearing at the door. Whether he had come by accident or by design I was never to learn; but there at the entrance, staring at me with a fascinated gaze, was my friend of the slit eyes and twisted nose!
Not waiting to make his closer acquaintance, I darted toward a dark passageway marked "Exit." And instantly he set up such a howl that the whole theatre was aroused, and the speaker, startled, halted midway in his address. "Thief! Robber! Bandit!" was dinned from behind me. "Catch him! Catch him! Catch him! He's a deserter from the war! Catch him! Catch him!"
As I darted into the passageway at a speed that did justice to my college track training, it was only too evident that the slit-eyed one, who was apparently a detective, had mistaken me for someone else. But I did not wait to inform him of his error. Well knowing that the penalty for a war deserter was death by the violet-ray, well knowing that the chalk-faces would execute me first and exonerate me afterwards, I did not check my pace for so much as a fraction of a second as I dashed away with half the theatre audience at my heels.
The violet-ray would not have been needed after all, had that bloodthirsty mob laid hands upon me. "Lynch him! Lynch him! Lynch him!" screeched the leaders of the multitude, as they raced after me along the curving galleries. "Lynch him! Burn him! Tear him to bits! The rat! Cur! Viper!"