"This," said the Franciscan, "ismy Automaton, who at the proper time will speak, answer whatsoeverquestion I may ask, and reveal all secret knowledge tome." He smiled as he laid his hand affectionately on the ironskull that topped the pedestal.
The youth gazed open-mouthed, first at the head and thenat the Friar. "But it's iron!" he whispered. "The head is iron,good father."
"Iron without, skill within, my son," said Roger Bacon."It will speak, at the proper time and in its own manner, forso have I made it. A clever man can twist the devil's arts toGod's ends, thereby cheating the fiend—Sst! There sounds vespers!Plena gratia, ave Virgo—"
But it did not speak. Long hours, long weeks, the doctormirabilis watched his creation, but iron lips were silent and theiron eyes dull, and no voice but the great man's own soundedin his monkish cell, nor was there ever an answer to all thequestions that he asked—until one day when he sat surveyinghis work, composing a letter to Duns Scotus in distant Cologne—oneday—
"Time is!" said the image, and smiled benignly.
The Friar looked up. "Time is, indeed," he echoed. "Timeit is that you give utterance, and to some assertion less obviousthan that time is. For of course time is, else there were nothingat all. Without time—"
"Time was!" rumbled the image, still smiling, but sternlyat the statue of Draco.
"Indeed time was," said the Monk. "Time was, is, andwill be, for time is that medium in which events occur. Matterexists in space, but events—"
The image smiled no longer. "Time is past!" it roared intones deep as the cathedral bell outside, and burst into tenthousand pieces.
"There," said old Haskel van Manderpootz, shutting thebook, "is my classical authority in this experiment. This story,overlaid as it is with mediæval myth and legend, proves thatRoger Bacon himself attempted the experiment—and failed."He shook a long finger at me. "Yet do not get the impression,Dixon, that Friar Bacon was not a great man. He was—extremelygreat, in fact; he lighted the torch that his namesakeFrancis Bacon took up four centuries later, and that now vanManderpootz rekindles."
I stared in silence.
"Indeed," resumed the Professor, "Roger Bacon might almostbe called a thirteenth century van Manderpootz, or vanManderpootz a twenty-first century Roger Bacon. His OpusMajus, Opus Minus, and Opus Tertium—"
"What," I interrupted impatiently, "has all this to do with—that?"I indicated the clumsy metal robot standing in thecorner of the laboratory.
"Don't interrupt!" snapped van Manderpootz. "I'll—"
At this point I fell out of my chair. The mass of metalhad ejaculated something like "A-a-gh-rasp" and had lunged asingle pace toward the window, arms upraised. "What thedevil!" I sputtered as the thing dropped its arms and returnedstolidly to its place.
"A car must have passed in the alley," said van Manderpootzindifferently. "Now as I was saying, Roger Bacon—"
I ceased to listen. When van Manderpootz is determinedto finish a statement, interruptions are worse than futile. Asan ex-student of his, I know. So I permitted my thoughts todrift to certain personal problems of my own, particularly TipsAlva, who was the most pressing problem of the moment. Yes,I mean Tips Alva the 'vision dancer, the little blonde imp whoenterta