"Evidently," his thoughts ran on, "they must regard me as an extraordinary being. And, of course, _I am_--and far superior. I am a superior being suffering from a nervous breakdown." He stopped himself abruptly, as though this view of the matter solved a good many problems. "I must get myself seen to," he mused, "because, of course, that accounts for everything; my lapse into this defunct order of things and my inability to move about freely in the usual, multiform manner. And it accounts for my absurd behaviour just now." He turned slowly, as though considering whether to return and explain matters to the curate. "I must have frightened him," he whispered, almost audibly, "but I only wanted to show him, and the parrot cage happened to be handy." He trundled forward again and lurched into the middle of the street. "Death," he reflected, "that was _death_, I suppose. They still die." CHAPTER SIX "It was not so, it is not so, and, indeed, God forbid it should be so." I At the foot of a hill, about five miles from Great Wymering, Doctor Allingham suddenly jammed down the brake of his car, got out, and began pacing the dusty road. Gregg remained seated in the car with his arms folded. "Aren't you going any further?" he enquired, anxiously. "No, I'm not," grumbled the Doctor, "I've had enough of this wild-goose chase. And besides, it's nearly dinner time." "But just now you were inclined to think differently," said Gregg, reproachfully. "Well, I admit I was rather mystified by that hat and wig. But when you come to rationalise the thing, what is there in it?" The Doctor was taking long strides and flourishing his leather gloves in the air. "How could such a thing be? How can anybody in his right senses entertain the notion that Dunn Brothers are still in existence two thousand years hence? And the Clarkson business. It's absurd on the face of it." "Even an absurdity," said Gregg, quietly, "may contain the positive truth. I admit it's ludicrous, but we both agree that it's inexplicable. We have to fall back on conjecture. To my mind there is something suggestive about that persistency in the future of things familiar to us. Suppose they have found a way of keeping things going, just as they are? Hasn't the aim of man always been the permanence of his institutions? And wouldn't it be characteristic of man, as we know him to-day, that he should hold on to purely utilitarian things, conveniences? In this age we sacrifice everything to utility. That's because we're getting somewhere in a hurry. Modern life is the last lap in man's race against Time."