‘It’s curious,’ twenty thousand fifty-one went on, ‘how sometimes things seem to go wrong. I remember a painter who took to putting spots on a building when he should have been painting stripes. He said it looked prettier that way, and called it art or something. Of course the Master took him apart. Sent his head back to the factory with a complaint. They fixed it, and now that fellow paints as good stripes as any one. Three thousand and seven, I think his number was.’ Just then the Sorcerer appeared and motioned Raphael and Cassandra to follow him. They walked down a long corridor, following the belt, on which lay thousands of arms. As they drew near the end of the concrete passageway, the noise of moving wheels and pounding hammers grew deafening. ‘What do you think of this?’ shouted the Sorcerer as they entered a huge room covered with a dirty glass roof. Raphael, holding Cassandra’s hand, stared in wonder at the broad belts which passed endlessly along, and at the great wheels that revolved in this gloomy cavern. Hundreds of mechanicos bent over complicated machinery. Daylight filtered dimly through the glass roof and windows, and was made more hideous by electric lights, which shone hard and blue over the moving chaos. [Illustration: THE THING CAME SUDDENLY TO LIFE MARCHING OFF IN COMPANY WITH FIFTY OTHERS] As he grew used to the seeming disorder, Raphael saw that heads, legs, bodies, and arms were being brought by lesser belts to a great central one, where workmen were busy putting the pieces together. ‘We can make ten thousand mechanicos a day in this one room alone,’ shouted the Sorcerer, ‘and there are a hundred rooms bigger than this within the city.’ It reminded Raphael of an automobile factory he had seen in Uniontown. When the parts were all assembled, numbers were engraved on the back of each figure and a letter indicating the type of work the mechanico was suited for. Then the lifeless body was encased in a gray uniform and stood on its feet. Other mechanicos poured oil down its throat, shook it violently, and the thing came suddenly to life, marching off in company with fifty others to take up the burden of work. Over all these Mechanus was master. ‘Come,’ said Mechanus, ‘I have something more to show you.’ Again Raphael and Cassandra followed him from the room down a corridor lit by electric lights. ‘Do mechanicos ever die?’ asked Raphael in the comparative quiet. ‘No,’ said Mechanus. ‘But every mechanico has so many motions he can make and no more. Then he has to go to the repair shop and be remade. If there is a mistake in his assembly, then he may have to go sooner.’ They came in a few moments to an unlit passageway which branched off at right angles. ‘What is down there?’ asked Raphael. ‘That is the repair shop,’ said the Sorcerer. ‘Oh,’ said Cassandra, ‘I don’t want to go there.’ It looked very dark down that corridor.