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The Country of the Blind and Other Stories - The New Accelerator · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Section twenty seven of the Country of the Blind and
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Speaker 1: Other Stories by H. G. Wells. This LibriVox recording is
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Speaker 1: in the public domain read by Peter Yearsley, The New Accelerator. Certainly,
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Speaker 1: if ever a man found a guinea when he was
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Speaker 1: looking for a pin, it is my good friend, Professor Gibburn.
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Speaker 1: I have heard before of investigators overshooting the mark, but
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Speaker 1: never quite to the extent that he has done. He has, really,
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Speaker 1: this time, at any rate, without any touch of exaggeration
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Speaker 1: in the phrase, found something to revolutionize human life, and
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Speaker 1: that when he was simply seeking an all round nervous
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Speaker 1: stimulant to bring languid people up to the stresses of
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Speaker 1: these pushful days. I have tasted the stuff now several times,
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Speaker 1: and I cannot do better than describe the effect the
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Speaker 1: thing had on me. That there are astonishing experiences in
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Speaker 1: store for all in search of new sensations will become
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Speaker 1: apparent enough. Professor Gibbon, as many people know, is my
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Speaker 1: neighbor in Folkeston. Unless my memory plays me a trick,
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Speaker 1: his portrait at various ages has already appeared in the
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Speaker 1: Strand magazine, I think, late in eighteen ninety nine. But
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Speaker 1: I am unable to look it up, because I have
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Speaker 1: lent that volume to someone who has never sent it back.
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Speaker 1: The reader may perhaps recall the high forehead and the
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Speaker 1: singularly long black eyebrows that give such a Mephistophelian touch
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Speaker 1: to his face. He occupies one of those pleasant little
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Speaker 1: detached houses in the mixed style that makes the western
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Speaker 1: end of the Upper Sandgate Road so interesting. His is
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Speaker 1: the one with the Flemish gables and the Moorish portico,
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Speaker 1: and it is in the little room with the Mullian
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Speaker 1: bay window that he works when he is down here,
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Speaker 1: and in which of an evening we have so often
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Speaker 1: smoked and talked together. He is a mighty gesture. But besides,
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Speaker 1: he likes to talk to me about his work. He
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Speaker 1: is one of those men who find a help and
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Speaker 1: stimulus in talking, And so I have been able to
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Speaker 1: follow the conception of the new accelerator right up from
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Speaker 1: a very early stage. Of course, the greater portion of
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Speaker 1: his experimental work is not done in Folkestone, but in
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Speaker 1: Gower Street, in the fine new laboratory next to the
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Speaker 1: hospital that he has been the first to use. As
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Speaker 1: everyone knows, or at least as all intelligent people know,
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Speaker 1: the special department in which Gibbon has gained so great
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Speaker 1: and deserved a reputation among physiologists is the action of
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Speaker 1: drugs upon the nervous system, upon soporifics, sedatives, and anesthetics.
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Speaker 1: He is, I am told, unequaled. He is also a
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Speaker 1: chemist of considerable eminence. And I suppose in the subtle
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Speaker 1: and complex jungle of riddles that centers about the ganglion
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Speaker 1: cell and the axis fiber, there are little cleared places
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Speaker 1: of his making, little glades of illumination, that, until he
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Speaker 1: sees fit to publish his results, are still inaccessible to
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Speaker 1: every other living man. And in the last few years
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Speaker 1: he has been particularly assiduous upon this question of nervous stimulants,
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Speaker 1: and already before the discovery of the new accelerator, very
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Speaker 1: successful with them. Medical science has to thank him for
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Speaker 1: at least three distinct and absolutely safe invigorators of unrivaled
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Speaker 1: value to practicing men in cases of exhaustion. The preparation
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Speaker 1: known as Gibbon's b syrup has I supposed, saved more
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Speaker 1: lives already than any lifeboat round the coast. But none
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Speaker 1: of these little things begin to satisfy me. Yet he
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Speaker 1: told me nearly a year ago. Either they increase the
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Speaker 1: central energy without affecting the nerves, or they simply increase
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Speaker 1: the available energy by lowering the nervous conductivity, And all
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Speaker 1: of them are unequal and local in their operation. One
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Speaker 1: wakes up the heart and viscera and leaves the brain stupefied.
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Speaker 1: One gets at the brain champagne fashion, and it does
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Speaker 1: nothing good for the solo plexus. And what I want,
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Speaker 1: and what if it's an earthly possibility I mean to have,
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Speaker 1: is a stimulant that stimulates all round, that wakes you
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Speaker 1: up for a time, from the crown of your head
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Speaker 1: to the tip of your great toe, and makes you
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Speaker 1: go two or even three to everyone else's one. Here.
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Speaker 1: That's the thing I'm after. It would tire a man,
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Speaker 1: I said, not a doubt of it, And you'd eat
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Speaker 1: double or treble and all that. But just think what
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Speaker 1: the thing would mean. Imagine yourself with a little vial
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Speaker 1: like this. He held up a little bottle of green
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Speaker 1: glass and marked his points with it. And in this
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Speaker 1: precious vial is the power to think twice as fast,
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Speaker 1: move twice as quickly, do twice as much work in
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Speaker 1: a given time as you could otherwise do. But is
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Speaker 1: such a thing possible? I believe so. If it isn't,
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Speaker 1: I've wasted my time for a year. These various preparations
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Speaker 1: of the hypophosphytes, for example, seemed to show that something
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Speaker 1: of the sort, even if it was only one and
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Speaker 1: a half times as fast it would do, it would do.
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Speaker 1: I said, if you were a statesman in a corner,
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Speaker 1: for example, time rushing up against you, something urgent to
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Speaker 1: be done. Eh, he could dose his private secretary, I said,
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Speaker 1: and gain double time. And think if you, for example,
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Speaker 1: wanted to finish a book usually, I said, I wish
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Speaker 1: I'd never begun. Or a doctor driven to death wants
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Speaker 1: to sit down and think out a case, or a barrister,
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Speaker 1: or a man crubbing for an examination worth a guinea drop,
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Speaker 1: said I. And more to men like that, and in
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Speaker 1: a duel, again, said Giburn. Where it all depends on
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Speaker 1: your quickness in pulling the trigger or in fencing, I echoed.
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Speaker 1: You see, said Giburn. If I get it as an
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Speaker 1: all round thing, it will really do you no harm
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Speaker 1: at all, except perhaps to an infinitesimal degree. It brings
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Speaker 1: you nearer old age. You will just have lived twice
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Speaker 1: to other people's wants. I suppose I meditated in a duel.
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Speaker 1: It would be fair. That's the question for the seconds,
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Speaker 1: said Giburn. I harked back further. And you really think
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Speaker 1: such a thing is possible? I said, as possible, said Giburn,
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Speaker 1: and glanced at something that went throbbing by the window
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Speaker 1: as a motor bus. As a matter of fact, he
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Speaker 1: paused and smiled at me deeply, and tapped slowly on
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Speaker 1: the edge of his desk with the green vial. I
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Speaker 1: think I know the stuff already. I've got something coming.
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Speaker 1: The nervous smile upon his face betrayed the gravity of
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Speaker 1: his revelation. He rarely talked of his actual experimental work
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Speaker 1: unless things were very near the end. And it may be.
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Speaker 1: It may be, I shouldn't be surprised. It may even
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Speaker 1: do the thing at a greater rate than twice. It
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Speaker 1: will be rather a big thing, I hazarded. It will be,
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Speaker 1: I think, rather a big thing. But I don't think
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Speaker 1: he quite knew what a big thing it was to be.
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Speaker 1: For all that I remember, we had several talks about
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Speaker 1: the stuff after that. The new accelerator he called it,
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Speaker 1: and his tone about it grew more confident on each occasion.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes he talked nervously of unexpected physiological results its use
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Speaker 1: might have, and then he would get a little unhappy.
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Speaker 1: At others he was frankly mercenary, and we debated long
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Speaker 1: and anxiously how the preparation might be turned to commercial account.
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Speaker 1: It's a good thing, said Gibbon, a tremendous thing. I know,
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Speaker 1: I'm giving the world something, and I think it only
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Speaker 1: reasonable we should expect the world to pay. The dignity
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Speaker 1: of science is all very well, but I think somehow
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Speaker 1: I must have the monopoly of the stuff for say
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Speaker 1: ten years. I don't see why all the fun in
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Speaker 1: life should go to the dealers in ham. My own
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Speaker 1: interest in the coming drug certainly did not wane in
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Speaker 1: the time. I have always had a queer little twist
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Speaker 1: towards metaphysics in my mind. I have always been given
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Speaker 1: to paradoxes about space and time, and it seemed to
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Speaker 1: me that Gibon was really preparing no less than the
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Speaker 1: absolute acceleration of life. Suppose a man repeatedly dosed with
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Speaker 1: such a preparation, he would live an active and record life, indeed,
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Speaker 1: but he would be an adult at eleven, middle aged
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Speaker 1: at twenty five, and by thirty well on the road
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Speaker 1: to senile decay. It seemed to me that so far
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Speaker 1: Gibbon was only going to do for anyone who took
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Speaker 1: his drug exactly what nature has done for the Jews
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Speaker 1: and Orientals, who are men in their teens and aged
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Speaker 1: by fifty, and quicker in thought and act than we
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Speaker 1: are all the time. The marvel of drugs has always
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Speaker 1: been great to my mind. You can madden a man,
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Speaker 1: calm a man, make him incredibly strong and alert, or
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Speaker 1: a helpless log, quicken this passion, and allay that all
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Speaker 1: by means of drugs. And here was a new miracle
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Speaker 1: to be added to this strange armory of vials the
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Speaker 1: doctors use. But Gibbon was far too eager upon his
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Speaker 1: technical points to enter very keenly into my aspect of
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Speaker 1: the question. It was the seventh or eighth of August
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Speaker 1: when he told you the distillation that would decide his
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Speaker 1: failure or success for a time was going forward as
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Speaker 1: we talk. And it was on the tenth that he
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Speaker 1: told me the thing was done, and the new accelerator
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Speaker 1: a tangible reality in the world. I met him as
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Speaker 1: I was going up the Sandgate Hill towards Folkston. I
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Speaker 1: think I was going to get my hair cut, and
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Speaker 1: he came hurrying down to meet me. I suppose he
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Speaker 1: was coming to my house to tell me at once
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Speaker 1: of his success. I remember that his eyes were unusually
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Speaker 1: bright and his face flushed, and I noted even then
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Speaker 1: the swift alacrity of his step. It's done, he cried,
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Speaker 1: and gripped my hand, speaking very fast. It's more than done.
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Speaker 1: Come up to my house and see, really, really, he shouted, incredibly,
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Speaker 1: Come up and see, and it does twice. It does more,
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Speaker 1: much more. It scares me. Come up and see the stuff,
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Speaker 1: taste it, try it. It's the most amazing stuff on earth.
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Speaker 1: He gripped my arm, and, walking at such a pace
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Speaker 1: that he forced me into a trot, went shouting with
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Speaker 1: me up the hill. A whole she aarabang full of
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Speaker 1: people turned and stared at us in Unison after the
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Speaker 1: manner of people in Scherabangs. It was one of those hot,
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Speaker 1: clear days that Folkstone sees, so much of every color
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Speaker 1: incredibly bright, and every outline hard. There was a breeze,
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Speaker 1: of course, but not so much breeze as sufficed under
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Speaker 1: these conditions to keep me cool and dry, I panted
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Speaker 1: for mercy. I'm not walking fast, am, I cried Giburn,
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Speaker 1: and slackened his pace to a quick march. You've been
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Speaker 1: taking some of this stuff? I puffed, No, he said,
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Speaker 1: at the utmost a drop of water that stood in
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Speaker 1: a beaker from which I had washed out the last
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Speaker 1: traces of the stuff. I took some last night, you know.
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Speaker 1: But that is ancient history. Now, and it goes twice,
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Speaker 1: I said, nearing his doorway in a grateful perspiration. It
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Speaker 1: goes a thousand times, many thousand times, cried Giburn, with
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Speaker 1: a dramatic gesture, flinging open his Early English carved oak gate.
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Speaker 1: Pheu said I and followed him to the door. I
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Speaker 1: don't know how many times it goes, he said, with
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Speaker 1: his latch key in his hand. And you, it throws
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Speaker 1: all sorts of light on nervous physiology. It kicks the
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Speaker 1: theory of a vision into a perfectly new shape. Heaven
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Speaker 1: knows how many thousand times we'll try all that after.
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Speaker 1: The thing is to try the stuff. Now, try the stuff,
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Speaker 1: I said, as we went along the passage. Rather, said Gibbon,
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Speaker 1: turning on me in his study there. It is in
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Speaker 1: that little green vial there, Unless you happen to be afraid.
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Speaker 1: I am a careful man by nature, and only theoretically adventurous.
12:43
Speaker 1: I was afraid. But on the other hand, there is pride. Well,
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Speaker 1: I haggled. You say you've tried it. I've tried it,
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Speaker 1: he said, And I don't look hurt by it, do I?
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Speaker 1: I don't even look livery, and I feel I sat down.
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Speaker 1: Give me the potion, I said, If the worst comes
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Speaker 1: to the worst, it will save me having my hair cut.
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Speaker 1: And that I think is one of the most hateful
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Speaker 1: duties of a civilized man. How do you take the
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Speaker 1: mixture with water? Said Gibon, whacking down a caraff He
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Speaker 1: stood up in front of his desk and regarded me
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Speaker 1: in his easy chair. His manner was suddenly affected by
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Speaker 1: a touch of the Harley Street specialist. It's rum stuff,
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Speaker 1: you know, he said. I made a gesture with my hand.
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Speaker 1: I must warn you in the first place, as soon
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Speaker 1: as you've got it down, to shut your eyes and
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Speaker 1: open them very cautiously. In a minute or so's time,
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Speaker 1: one still sees. The sense of vision is a question
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Speaker 1: of length of vibration, and not of multitude of impacts.
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Speaker 1: But there's a kind of shock to the retina, a nasty,
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Speaker 1: giddy confusion just at the time. If the eyes are open,
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Speaker 1: keep em shut shut, I said. Good. And the next
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Speaker 1: thing is keep still. Don't begin to whack about. You
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Speaker 1: may fetch something a nasty rap. If you do, remember,
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Speaker 1: you will be going several thousand times faster than you
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Speaker 1: ever did before. Hearts, lungs, muscles, brain, everything, and you
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Speaker 1: will hit hard without knowing it. You won't know it.
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Speaker 1: You know, you'll feel just as you do now. Only
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Speaker 1: everything in the world will seem to be going ever
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Speaker 1: so many thousand times slower than it ever went before.
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Speaker 1: That's what makes it so deuced queer law, I said,
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Speaker 1: And you mean you'll see, said he, and took up
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Speaker 1: a little measure. He glanced at the material on his
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Speaker 1: desk glasses. He said, water all here, mustn't take too much.
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Speaker 1: For the first attempt, the little vial glucked out its
14:47
Speaker 1: precious contents. Don't forget what I told you, he said,
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Speaker 1: turning the contents of the measure into a glass in
14:54
Speaker 1: the manner of an Italian waiter measuring whisky. Sit with
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Speaker 1: the eyes tightly shut and in absolute stillness for two minutes,
15:02
Speaker 1: he said, Then you will hear me speak. He added
15:05
Speaker 1: an inch yourself water to the little dose in each glass.
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Speaker 1: By the bye, he said, don't put your glass down,
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Speaker 1: keep it in your hand, and rest your hand on
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Speaker 1: your knee. Yes so, and now he raised his glass.
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Speaker 1: The new accelerator, I said, the new accelerator, he answered.
15:26
Speaker 1: And we touched glasses and drank, and instantly I closed
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Speaker 1: my eyes. You know that blank non existence into which
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Speaker 1: one drops when one has taken gas for an indefinite interval.
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Speaker 1: It was like that. Then I heard Gibbon telling me
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Speaker 1: to wake up, and I stirred and opened my eyes.
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Speaker 1: There he stood as he had been standing, glass still
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Speaker 1: in hand. It was empty. That was all the difference, well,
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Speaker 1: said I. Nothing out of the way, nothing a slight
15:56
Speaker 1: feeling of exhilaration, perhaps nothing more. Sounds. Things are still,
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Speaker 1: I said, by jove, yes they are still, except the
16:07
Speaker 1: sort of faint pat patter, like rain falling on different things.
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Speaker 1: What is it? Analyzed sounds? I think, he said, but
16:15
Speaker 1: I am not sure. He glanced at the window. Have
16:19
Speaker 1: you ever seen a curtain before? A window fixed in
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Speaker 1: that way? Before? I followed his eyes and there was
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Speaker 1: the end of the curtain, frozen as it were, corner
16:29
Speaker 1: high in the act of flapping briskly in the breeze. No,
16:33
Speaker 1: said I, that's odd. And here he said, and opened
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Speaker 1: the hand that held the glass. Naturally, I winced, expecting
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Speaker 1: the glass to smash, but so far from smashing it
16:46
Speaker 1: did not even seem to stir. It hung in mid
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Speaker 1: air motionless, roughly speaking, said Gibon. An object in these
16:54
Speaker 1: latitudes falls sixteen feet in the first second. This glass
16:58
Speaker 1: is falling sixteen feet in a second. And now only
17:01
Speaker 1: you see it hasn't been falling yet for the hundredth
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Speaker 1: part of a second. That gives you some idea of
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Speaker 1: the pace of my accelerator. And he waved his hand
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Speaker 1: round and round, over and under the slowly sinking glass.
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Speaker 1: Finally he took it by the bottom, pulled it down,
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Speaker 1: and placed it very carefully on the table. Here, he
17:21
Speaker 1: said to me, and laughed. That seems all right, I said,
17:25
Speaker 1: and began very gingerly to raise myself from my chair.
17:29
Speaker 1: I felt perfectly well, very light and comfortable, and quite
17:33
Speaker 1: confident in my mind. I was going fast all over.
17:37
Speaker 1: My heart, for example, was beating a thousand times a second,
17:41
Speaker 1: but that caused me no discomfort at all. I looked
17:45
Speaker 1: out of the window an immovable cyclist, head down and
17:49
Speaker 1: with a frozen puff of dust behind his driving wheel,
17:53
Speaker 1: scorched to overtake a galloping cherubang that did not stir.
17:58
Speaker 1: I gaped in amazement at this ea incredible spectacle. Gibbon,
18:02
Speaker 1: I cried, how long will this confounded stuff last? Heaven knows,
18:06
Speaker 1: he answered, Last time I took it, I went to
18:09
Speaker 1: bed and slept it off. I tell you I was frightened.
18:12
Speaker 1: It must have lasted some minutes. I think it seemed
18:15
Speaker 1: like hours. But after a bit it slows down rather suddenly.
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Speaker 1: I believe. I was proud to observe that I did
18:23
Speaker 1: not feel frightened. I suppose because there were two of us.
18:27
Speaker 1: Why shouldn't we go out? I asked, Why not? They'll
18:31
Speaker 1: see us? Not they? Goodness? No? Why we shall be
18:34
Speaker 1: going a thousand times faster than the quickest conjuring trick
18:38
Speaker 1: that was ever done? Go on, which way shall we go?
18:41
Speaker 1: Window or door? And out by the window we went,
18:46
Speaker 1: assuredly of all the strange experiences that I have ever had,
18:51
Speaker 1: or imagined or read of other people having, or imagining
18:55
Speaker 1: that little raid I made with Giburn on the Folkston
18:59
Speaker 1: LEAs under the influence of the new accelerator was the
19:03
Speaker 1: strangest and maddest of all. We went out by his
19:07
Speaker 1: gate into the road, and there we made a minute
19:10
Speaker 1: examination of the statuesque passing traffic. The tops of the
19:15
Speaker 1: wheels and some of the legs of the horses of
19:17
Speaker 1: this cherabang, the end of the whiplash, and the lower
19:20
Speaker 1: jaw of the conductor, who was just beginning to yawn,
19:24
Speaker 1: were perceptibly in motion. But all the rest of the
19:27
Speaker 1: lumbering conveyance seemed still and quite noiseless, except for a
19:32
Speaker 1: faint rattling that came from one man's throat. And as
19:36
Speaker 1: parts of this frozen edifice, there were a driver, you know,
19:40
Speaker 1: and a conductor and eleven people. The effect as we
19:43
Speaker 1: walked about the thing began by being madly queer and
19:47
Speaker 1: ended by being disagreeable. There they were people like ourselves,
19:53
Speaker 1: and yet not like ourselves, frozen in careless attitudes, caught
19:58
Speaker 1: in mid gesture. A girl and a man smiled at
20:02
Speaker 1: one another, a leering smile that threatened to last for evermore.
20:08
Speaker 1: A woman in a floppy capeline rested her arm on
20:11
Speaker 1: the rail and stared at Giburn's house with the unwinking
20:15
Speaker 1: stare of eternity. A man stroked his mustache like a
20:20
Speaker 1: figure of wax, and another stretched a tiresome, stiff hand
20:24
Speaker 1: with extended fingers towards his loosened hat. We stared at them,
20:30
Speaker 1: we laughed at them, we made faces at them. And
20:33
Speaker 1: then a sort of disgust of them came upon us,
20:36
Speaker 1: and we turned away and walked round in front of
20:38
Speaker 1: the cyclist towards the lees. Goodness, cried Giburn. Suddenly, look there,
20:44
Speaker 1: he pointed, And there, at the tip of his finger,
20:47
Speaker 1: and sliding down the air, with wings flapping slowly and
20:52
Speaker 1: at the speed of an exceptionally languid snail, was a bee.
20:57
Speaker 1: And so he came out upon the lees. There the
21:00
Speaker 1: thing seemed madder than ever. The band was playing in
21:03
Speaker 1: the upper stand, though all the sound it made for
21:06
Speaker 1: us was a low pitched, wheezy rattle, a sort of
21:10
Speaker 1: prolonged last sigh that passed at times into a sound
21:15
Speaker 1: like the slow, muffled ticking of some monstrous clock. Frozen
21:20
Speaker 1: people stood erect, strange, silent, self conscious looking dummies, hung
21:26
Speaker 1: unstably in mid stride, promenading upon the grass. I passed
21:31
Speaker 1: close to a little poodle dog suspended in the act
21:34
Speaker 1: of leaping, and watched the slow movement of his legs
21:38
Speaker 1: as he sank to earth. Nought. Look here, cried Giburn,
21:42
Speaker 1: and we halted for a moment before a magnificent person
21:45
Speaker 1: in white, faint striped flannels, white shoes, and a panama hat,
21:50
Speaker 1: who turned back to wink at two gaily dressed ladies.
21:54
Speaker 1: He had passed. A wink, studdied with such leisurely deliberation
21:59
Speaker 1: as we could afford, is an unattractive thing. It loses
22:04
Speaker 1: any quality of alert gaiety. And one remarks that the
22:08
Speaker 1: winking eye does not completely close, that under its drooping
22:13
Speaker 1: lid appears the lower edge of an eyeball and a
22:17
Speaker 1: little line of white. Heaven give me memory, said I,
22:21
Speaker 1: and I will never wink again or smile, said Giburn,
22:25
Speaker 1: with his eye on the lady's answering teeth. It's infernally hot, somehow,
22:31
Speaker 1: said I. Let's go slower. Oh, come along, said Giburn.
22:36
Speaker 1: We picked our way among the bath chairs in the path.
22:39
Speaker 1: Many of the people sitting in the chairs seemed almost
22:43
Speaker 1: natural in their passive poses. But the contorted scarlet of
22:47
Speaker 1: the bandsmen was not a RESTful thing to see. A
22:51
Speaker 1: purple faced little gentleman was frozen in the midst of
22:54
Speaker 1: a violent struggle to reform his newspaper against the wind.
22:59
Speaker 1: There were many evidences that all these people, in their
23:02
Speaker 1: sluggish way, were exposed to a considerable breeze, a breeze
23:07
Speaker 1: that had no existence so far as our sensations went.
23:11
Speaker 1: We came out and walked a little way from the crowd,
23:15
Speaker 1: and turned and regarded it. To see all that multitude
23:19
Speaker 1: changed to a picture, smit and rigid as it were,
23:23
Speaker 1: into the semblance of realistic wax, was impossibly wonderful. It
23:28
Speaker 1: was absurd, of course, but it filled me with an irrational,
23:32
Speaker 1: an exultant sense of superior advantage. Consider the wonder of it.
23:37
Speaker 1: All that I had said and thought and done, since
23:41
Speaker 1: the stuff had begun to work in my veins, had happened,
23:44
Speaker 1: so far as those people, so far as the world
23:47
Speaker 1: in general went, in the twinkling of an eye, the
23:51
Speaker 1: new accelerator, I began, but Gibbon interrupted me. There's that
23:56
Speaker 1: infernal old woman, he said, What old woman lives next
24:00
Speaker 1: door to me, said, Giburn has a lap dog that
24:03
Speaker 1: yaps God. The temptation is strong. There is something very
24:08
Speaker 1: boyish and impulsive about Giburn. At times, before I could
24:12
Speaker 1: expostulate with him, he had dashed forward, snatched the unfortunate
24:17
Speaker 1: animal out of visible existence, and was running violently with
24:21
Speaker 1: it towards the cliff of the lees. It was most extraordinary.
24:25
Speaker 1: The little brute, you know, didn't bark or wriggle, or
24:28
Speaker 1: make the slightest sign of vitality. It kept quite stiffly,
24:33
Speaker 1: in an attitude of somnolent repose, and Giburn held it
24:37
Speaker 1: by the neck. It was like running about with a
24:39
Speaker 1: dog of wood. Gibbon I cried, put it down. Then
24:44
Speaker 1: I said something else. If you run like that, gibbon
24:47
Speaker 1: I cried, you'll set your clothes on fire. Your linen
24:51
Speaker 1: trousers are going brown as it is. He clapped his
24:54
Speaker 1: hand on his thigh and stood hesitating on the verge.
24:58
Speaker 1: Gibbon I cried, coming up, put it's down. This heat
25:02
Speaker 1: is too much. It's our running, so two or three
25:05
Speaker 1: miles A second friction of the air, what he said,
25:08
Speaker 1: glancing at the dog. Friction of the air. I shouted,
25:13
Speaker 1: friction of the air going too fast, like meteorites, and
25:17
Speaker 1: things too hot, and Gibbon, Gibbon, I'm all over pricking
25:22
Speaker 1: and a sort of perspiration. You can see people stirring slightly.
25:25
Speaker 1: I believe the stuff's working off. Put that dog down, eh,
25:30
Speaker 1: he said, it's working off. I repeated, We're too hot,
25:34
Speaker 1: and the stuff's working off. I'm wet through, he staid
25:38
Speaker 1: at me, then at the band, the wheezy rattle of
25:41
Speaker 1: whose performance was certainly going faster. Then with a tremendous
25:46
Speaker 1: sweep of the arm, he hurled the dog away from him,
25:49
Speaker 1: and it went spinning upward, still inanimate, and hung at
25:54
Speaker 1: last over the grouped parasols of a knot of chattering people.
25:58
Speaker 1: Gibbon was gripping my elbow. By jove, he cried, I
26:02
Speaker 1: believe it is a sort of hot pricking. And yes,
26:05
Speaker 1: that man's moving his pocket handkerchief perceptibly. We must get
26:10
Speaker 1: out of this sharp But we could not get out
26:13
Speaker 1: of it sharply enough. Luckily, perhaps, for we might have run.
26:16
Speaker 1: And if we had run, we should I believe have
26:19
Speaker 1: burst into flames. Almost certainly we should have burst into flames.
26:24
Speaker 1: You know, we had neither of us thought of that,
26:27
Speaker 1: But before we could even begin to run, the action
26:30
Speaker 1: of the drug had ceased. It was the business of
26:32
Speaker 1: a minute, fraction of a second. The effect of the
26:35
Speaker 1: new accelerator passed, like the drawing of a curtain, vanished
26:39
Speaker 1: in the movement of a hand. I heard Gibon's voice
26:42
Speaker 1: in infinite alarm. Sit down, he said, and flop down
26:46
Speaker 1: upon the turf at the edge of the LEAs I sat, scorching.
26:50
Speaker 1: As I sat, there is a patch of burnt grass
26:53
Speaker 1: there still where I sat down. The whole stagnation seemed
26:58
Speaker 1: to wake up. As I did so, the disarticulated vibration
27:02
Speaker 1: of the band rushed together into a blast of music.
27:05
Speaker 1: The promenades put their feet down and walked their ways.
27:10
Speaker 1: The papers and flags began flapping, Smiles passed into words.
27:14
Speaker 1: The winker finished his wink and went on his way complacently,
27:18
Speaker 1: and all the seated people moved and spoke. The whole
27:23
Speaker 1: world had come alive again. Was going as fast as
27:26
Speaker 1: we were, or rather, we were going no faster than
27:29
Speaker 1: the rest of the world. It was like slowing down
27:32
Speaker 1: as one comes into a railway station. Everything seemed to
27:36
Speaker 1: spin round for a second or two I had the
27:38
Speaker 1: most transient feeling of nausea, and that was all. And
27:42
Speaker 1: the little dog, which had seemed to hang for a
27:46
Speaker 1: moment when the force of Gibon's arm was expended, fell
27:50
Speaker 1: with the swift acceleration clean through a lady's parasol. That
27:54
Speaker 1: was the saving of us, unless it was for one
27:58
Speaker 1: corpulent old gentleman in a bath chair, who certainly did
28:02
Speaker 1: start at the sight of us, and afterwards regarded us
28:05
Speaker 1: at intervals with a darkly suspicious eye, and finally, I believe,
28:10
Speaker 1: said something to his nurse about us. I doubt if
28:13
Speaker 1: a solitary person remarked our sudden appearance among them, pop,
28:18
Speaker 1: we must have appeared abruptly. We ceased to smolder almost
28:22
Speaker 1: at once, though the turf beneath me was uncomfortably hot.
28:26
Speaker 1: The attention of everyone, including even the Amusements Association band,
28:32
Speaker 1: which on this occasion for the only time in its history,
28:36
Speaker 1: got out of tune, was arrested by the amazing fact
28:40
Speaker 1: and the still more amazing yapping and uproar caused by
28:44
Speaker 1: the fact that a respectable over fed lap dog sleeping
28:48
Speaker 1: quietly to the east of the bandstand should suddenly fall
28:52
Speaker 1: through the parasol of a lady on the west in
28:55
Speaker 1: a slightly singed to condition due to the extreme velocity
28:58
Speaker 1: of its movements through the air. In these absurd days too,
29:04
Speaker 1: when we are all trying to be as psychic and
29:07
Speaker 1: silly and superstitious as possible, people got up and trod
29:12
Speaker 1: on other people. Chairs were overturned. The lee's policemen ran.
29:17
Speaker 1: How the matter settled itself, I do not know. We
29:20
Speaker 1: were much too anxious to disentangle ourselves from the affair
29:24
Speaker 1: and get out of range of the eye of the
29:27
Speaker 1: old gentleman in the bath chair to make minute inquiries.
29:31
Speaker 1: As soon as we were sufficiently cool and sufficiently recovered
29:34
Speaker 1: from our giddiness and nausea and confusion of mind to
29:38
Speaker 1: do so, we stood up, and, skirting the crowd, directed
29:43
Speaker 1: our steps back along the road below the metropole towards
29:47
Speaker 1: Gibbon's house. But amidst the din I heard very distinctly
29:52
Speaker 1: the gentleman who had been sitting beside the lady of
29:55
Speaker 1: the ruptured sunshade using quite unjustifiable threat and language to
30:01
Speaker 1: one of those chair attendants who have Inspector written on
30:06
Speaker 1: their caps. If you didn't throw the dog, he said,
30:09
Speaker 1: who did. The sudden return of movement and familiar noises,
30:14
Speaker 1: and our natural anxiety about ourselves. Our clothes were still
30:19
Speaker 1: dreadfully hot, and the fronts of the thighs of Gibbon's
30:23
Speaker 1: white trousers were scorched a dravish brown prevented the minute
30:28
Speaker 1: observations I should have liked to make on all these things. Indeed,
30:32
Speaker 1: I really made no observations of any scientific value. On
30:36
Speaker 1: that return, the bee, of course, had gone. I looked
30:39
Speaker 1: for that cyclist, but he was already out of sight
30:42
Speaker 1: as we came into the utter Sandgate road, or hidden
30:46
Speaker 1: from us by traffic. The Cherubag, however, with its people
30:49
Speaker 1: now all alive and stirring, was clattering along at a
30:53
Speaker 1: spanking pace, almost abreast of the nearer church. We noted, however,
30:59
Speaker 1: that the window sill on which we had stepped in
31:01
Speaker 1: getting out of the house was slightly singed, and that
31:05
Speaker 1: the impressions of our feet on the gravel of the
31:07
Speaker 1: path were unusually deep. So it was I had my
31:12
Speaker 1: first experience of the new accelerator. Practically, we had been
31:16
Speaker 1: running about and saying and doing all sorts of things
31:20
Speaker 1: in the space of a second or so of time,
31:23
Speaker 1: we had lived half an hour while the band had
31:25
Speaker 1: played perhaps two bars. But the effect it had upon
31:29
Speaker 1: us was that the whole world had stopped for our
31:33
Speaker 1: convenient inspection. Considering all things, and particularly considering our rashness
31:39
Speaker 1: in venturing out of the house, the experience might certainly
31:43
Speaker 1: have been much more disagreeable than it was. It showed
31:47
Speaker 1: no doubt that Gibbon has still much to learn before
31:51
Speaker 1: his preparation is a manageable convenience, but its practicability it
31:56
Speaker 1: certainly demonstrated beyond all cavil. Since that adventure, he has
32:01
Speaker 1: been steadily bringing its use under control, and I have,
32:05
Speaker 1: several times, and without the slightest bad result, taken measured
32:09
Speaker 1: doses under his direction. Though I must confess I have
32:13
Speaker 1: not yet ventured abroad again while under its influence. I
32:18
Speaker 1: may mention, for example, that this story has been written
32:22
Speaker 1: at one sitting and without interruption except for the nibbling
32:26
Speaker 1: of some chocolate. By its means, I began at six
32:30
Speaker 1: twenty five, and my watch is now very nearly at
32:33
Speaker 1: the minute past a half hour. The convenience of securing
32:36
Speaker 1: a long uninterrupted spell of work in the midst of
32:40
Speaker 1: a day full of engagements cannot be exaggerated. Gibbon is
32:45
Speaker 1: now working at the quantitative handling of his preparation, with
32:48
Speaker 1: a special reference to its distinctive effects upon different types
32:53
Speaker 1: of constitution. He then hopes to find a retarder with
32:57
Speaker 1: which to dilute its present rather excessive potency. The retarder will,
33:02
Speaker 1: of course have the reverse effect to the accelerator used alone.
33:08
Speaker 1: It should enable the patient to spread a few seconds
33:11
Speaker 1: over many hours of ordinary time, and so to maintain
33:16
Speaker 1: an apathetic in action, a glacier like absence of alacrity
33:21
Speaker 1: amidst the most animated or irritating surroundings. The two things
33:26
Speaker 1: together must necessarily work an entire revolution in civilized existence.
33:31
Speaker 1: It is the beginning of our escape from that time
33:34
Speaker 1: garment of which Carlyle speaks. While this accelerator will enable
33:39
Speaker 1: us to concentrate ourselves with tremendous impact upon any moment
33:43
Speaker 1: or occasion that demands our utmost sense and vigor, the
33:47
Speaker 1: retarda will enable us to pass in passive tranquility through
33:52
Speaker 1: infinite hardship and tedium. Perhaps I am a little optimistic
33:57
Speaker 1: about the retarda, which has indeed still to be discovered,
34:01
Speaker 1: but about the accelerator. There is no possible sort of doubt. Whatever.
34:05
Speaker 1: Its appearance upon the market in a convenient, controllable and
34:09
Speaker 1: assimilable form is a matter of the next few months.
34:13
Speaker 1: It will be obtainable of all chemists and druggists in
34:17
Speaker 1: small green bottles at a high but considering its extraordinary qualities,
34:23
Speaker 1: by no means excessive price. Gibbon's nervous accelerator. It will
34:29
Speaker 1: be called, and he hopes to be able to supply
34:32
Speaker 1: it in three strengths, one in two hundred, one in
34:36
Speaker 1: nine hundred, and one in two thousand, distinguished by yellow, pink,
34:40
Speaker 1: and white labels, respectively. No doubt its use renders a
34:44
Speaker 1: great number of very extraordinary things possible, For, of course,
34:48
Speaker 1: the most remarkable and possibly even criminal proceedings may be
34:52
Speaker 1: effected with impunity. By thus dodging, as it were, into
34:57
Speaker 1: the interstices of time. Like potent preparations, it will be
35:02
Speaker 1: liable to abuse. We have, however, discussed this aspect of
35:06
Speaker 1: the question very thoroughly, and we have decided that this
35:10
Speaker 1: is purely a matter of medical jurisprudence, and altogether outside
35:15
Speaker 1: our province. We shall manufacture and sell the accelerator, and
35:20
Speaker 1: As for the consequences, we shall see end of Section
35:25
Speaker 1: twenty seven