“I am telling you facts, my dear fellow, that you may verify for yourself in any cyclopedia. Then there was a man called Vancouver, who amused himself making a clock whose figures at certain hours played on the tambour de flacque–droll, very droll, that.”

tambour de flacque

“An affair like that I saw once at Maskelyne’s, I suppose,” I said with assumed indifference. “I remember it was an automaton figure called Psyche, a whist-player. I played a game with her myself one dull afternoon.”

“Tut, tut,” exclaimed St. Hilary irritably, “I am not speaking of the tricks of the music-halls. There’s the chess-player, for that matter, but all the world knows that a human being is concealed inside of those clumsy toys. I am speaking of veritable automatons, such as the clock you are to show me presently. Then there was a crazy 91genius who made an automaton that would lull him to sleep with an air as gentle as spring zephyrs, and awaken him with a crashing march. There are automatons that sing and dance and talk without number. And one clock-maker wrote a book of instructions for keeping the mechanism of his clock in order after his death.”

91

“All this, I take it,” I said, lighting my cigar, which had repeatedly gone out, “is apropos of our clock. At every hour, as old Luigi said, it tells its secret.”

“That is it,” replied St. Hilary. “And when you and I, Hume, shall have mastered those twelve secrets, we shall know where our jewels are hidden. And now, have you still curiosity to know whether this is a legend or a fact?”

“Yes.”

“Then you will help me to look for it?”

“Yes.”

“Good. We may fail.” He looked at me keenly.

“Of course.”

“I like your monosyllables. I believe you are really in earnest.”

“Yes; I am in earnest.”

“Good again. Then we pool our interests. If we are successful, we share alike. Is that fair?”

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