Billy stood spell-bound. Oh, you should have seen his face! You should have seen his eyes slowly moving their lambent lights as they followed the rhythm of the pendulum from side to side. If Billy was hypnotised by the pendulum, I was hypnotised by Billy. Suddenly he clutched my arm in his wonted way. "I say," he whispered, "_it knows us_. Here, old chap" (addressing the pendulum), "you know us, don't you? You're glad to see us, aren't you?" "Tick, tock," said the pendulum. "Can't he talk--just!" said Billy. "Look at his eye! He winked at me that time, I'll swear." And, by the Powers, the very next time the pendulum reached the top of the arc I saw the crumpled metal in the middle of the disc double itself up and wink at _me_ also, plain as plain. "Billy," I said, "if we stare at him much longer we shall both go cracked. Let's go into the churchyard. I've something else to show you." So to the churchyard we went, and there, among the mouldering tombstones, I expounded to Billy my new theory as to the nature of Time, reserving the crowning evidence until Billy had grasped the main principle. "So you see," I concluded, "the seconds are the stoppages." "There aren't any stoppages," said he. "Pendulums don't stop." "How can they go down after coming up unless they stop between?" I asked. "Wait till you get to the Higher Mathematics." "Then where do the seconds come in?" "They don't _come_ in: they _are_ in all along." "Then," I said triumphantly, "look at that clock face. Can't you see how the big hand goes jerk, jerk?" "Well, what of that?" "What of that? Why, if the seconds aren't the stoppages, what becomes of time between the jerks?" "Why," answered Billy, "_it's plugging ahead all the time_." "All _what_ time?" I countered, convinced now that I had him in a vicious circle. "Blockhead!" cried Billy. "Don't you remember what that old Johnny told us in the Park? There's all the difference in the world between _the_ time and _time_." "I'll bet you can't tell me what the difference is." "Yes, I can. It's the difference between the pendulum and the clock-hand. Look at the jerking old idiot! _That_ thing can't talk; _that_ thing can't wink; _that_ thing doesn't know us. Why, you silly, it only does what the pendulum tells it to do. The pendulum _knows_ what it's doing. But _that_ thing doesn't. Here, let's go back into the church and have another talk with the jolly old chap!" * * * * * Ten years later when Billy, barely twenty-three, had half finished a book which would have made him famous, I handed him an essay by a distinguished philosopher, and requested him to read it. The title was "On translating Time into Eternity." When Billy returned it, I asked him how he had fared. "Oh," he answered, "I translated time into eternity without much difficulty. _But it was plugging ahead all the time._"