Boswell was a little late in arriving the next night. He had agreed to
be on hand exactly at midnight, but it was after one o'clock before the
machine began to click and the bell to ring. I had fallen asleep in the
soft upholstered depths of my armchair, feeling pretty thoroughly worn
out by the experiences of the night before, which, in spite of their
pleasant issue, were nevertheless somewhat disturbing to a nervous
organization like mine. Suddenly I waked, and with the awakening there
entered into my mind the notion that the whole thing was merely a dream,
and that in the end it would be the better for me if I were to give up
Aldus and other club dinners with nightmare inducing menus. But I was
soon convinced that the real state of affairs was quite otherwise, and
that everything really had happened as I have already related it to you,
for I had hardly gotten my eyes free from what my poetic son calls “the
seeds of sleep” when I heard the type-writer tap forth:
“Hello, old man!”
Incidentally let me say that this had become another interesting feature
of the machine. Since my first interview with Boswell the taps seemed
to speak, and if some one were sitting before it and writing a line the
mere differentiation of sounds of the various keys would convey to the
mind the ideas conveyed to it by the printed words. So, as I say, my
ears were greeted with a clicking “Hello, old man!” followed immediately
by the bell.
“You are late,” said I, looking at my watch.
“I know it,” was the response. “But I can't help it. During the campaign
I am kept so infernally busy I hardly know where I am.”
“Campaign, eh?” I put in. “Do you have campaigns in Hades?”
“Yes,” replied Boswell, “and we are having a--well, to be polite, a
regular Gehenna of a time. Things have changed much in Hades latterly.
There has been a great growth in the democratic spirit below, and his
Majesty is having a deuce of a time running his kingdom. Washington and
Cromwell and Caesar have had the nerve to demand a constitution from the
venerable Nicholas--”
“From whom?” I queried, perplexed somewhat, for I was not yet fully
awake.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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