The Panchronicon

  CHAPTER V

  DROOP'S THEORY IN PRACTICE

  All were up betimes when the faithful clock announced that it ought tobe morning. As for the sun, as though resenting the liberties about tobe taken by these adventurers with its normal functions, it refused toset, and was found by the three travellers at the same altitude as thenight before.

  Promptly after breakfast Droop proceeded to don a suit of furs which hedrew from a cupboard within the engine-room.

  "Ye'd better hev suthin' hot ready when I come in again," he said. "I'xpect I'll be nigh froze to death."

  He drew on a huge cap of bear's fur which extended from his crown to hisshoulders. There was a small hole in front which exposed only his noseand eyes.

  "My, but you do look just like a pictur of Kris Kringle!" laughedPhoebe. "Don't he, Rebecca?"

  Rebecca came to the kitchen door wiping a dish with slow circularmovements of her towel.

  "I don't guess you'll freeze very much with all that on," she remarked.

  "Thet shows you don't know what seventy or eighty below zero means,"said a muffled voice from within the fur cap. "You'll hev suthin' hot,won't ye?" Droop continued, looking appealingly at Phoebe.

  "The'll be a pot o' good hot tea," she said. "That'll warm you allright."

  Droop thought of something more stimulating and fragrant, but saidnothing as he returned to the cupboard. Here he drew forth an apparentlyendless piece of stout rope. This he wound in a thick coil and hung overhis head.

  "Now, then," he said, "when I get down you shet the door at the top ofthe stairs tight, coz jest's soon's I open the outside door, thet hall'sgoin' to freeze up solid."

  "All right!" said Phoebe. "I'll see to it."

  Droop descended the stairs with a heavy tread, and as he reached thefoot Phoebe closed the upper door, which she now noticed was providedwith weather-strips.

  Then the two women stood at the windows on the right-hand side of thevessel and watched Droop as he walked toward the pole. He raised thehuge iron ring, snapping over it a special coupling hook fixed to theend of the rope.

  Then he backed toward the vessel, unrolling the coil of rope as he movedaway from the pole. Evidently they were within the forty-foot limit fromthe pole, for Droop had some rope to spare when he at length reachedunder the machine to attach the end to a ring which the sisters couldnot see.

  He emerged from beneath the bulging side of the vessel swinging hisarms and blowing a mighty volume of steam, which turned to snow as itleft him. As he made directly for the entrance again, Phoebe ran tothe kitchen.

  "Poor man, he'll be perished!" she exclaimed.

  As Droop entered the room, bringing with him a bitter atmosphere,Phoebe appeared with a large cup of hot tea.

  "Here, Mr. Droop," she said, "drink this quick!"

  Copernicus pulled off his cap and sat down to drink his tea without aword. When he had finished it, he pulled back his chair with a sigh.

  "Whillikins! But 'twas cold!" he exclaimed. "Seems mos' like heaven toget into a nice warm room like this!"

  "An' did ye get every thin' done right?" Rebecca asked.

  "I guess I did," he said, emphatically. "I don't want to take no twobites out o' that kind o' cherry."

  He rose and proceeded to remove his fur coverings.

  "Goin' to start right now?" said Phoebe.

  "Might's well, I guess."

  He proceeded to the engine-room, followed by Phoebe, who watched hisactions with the greatest interest.

  "What you doin' with that handle?" she asked.

  "That sets the airyplane on the uptilt. I'm only settin' it a mite--jest'nough to keep the machine from sinkin' down when we get to movin'."

  "How are you goin' to lift us up?"

  "Just let out a mite o' gas below," said Droop. He suited the action tothe word, and, with a tremendous hissing beneath it, the vessel roseslowly.

  Droop pulled the starting lever and they moved forward with increasingspeed. When they had gathered way, he shut off the gas escape andcarefully readjusted the aeroplanes until the machine as a whole movedhorizontally.

  There was felt a slight jerk as they reached the end of the rope, andthen they began to move in a circle from east to west.

  Phoebe glanced at the clock.

  "Just five minutes past eight," she said.

  The sun was pouring its beams into the right-hand windows when theystarted, but the shafts of light now began to sweep circularly acrossthe floor, and in a few moments, as they faced the sun, it ceased toshine in from the right. Immediately afterward it shone in at theleft-hand windows and circled slowly around until again they were inshadow with the sun behind them.

  Droop took out his watch and timed their revolutions by the sun'sprogress from window to window.

  "'Bout one to the minute," he remarked. "Guess I'll speed her up amite."

  Carefully he regulated the speed, timing their revolutions accurately.

  "There!" he said at length. "I guess that's pretty nigh two to theminute. D'ye feel any side weight?" he said, addressing his companions.

  "No," said Rebecca.

  Phoebe shook her head.

  "You manage right well, Mr. Droop," she said. "You must have practised agood deal."

  "Oh, not much," he replied, greatly pleased. "The future man showed mehow to work it three--four times. It's simple 'nough when ye understandthe principles."

  These remarks brought a new idea to Rebecca's mind.

  "Why, Mr. Droop," she exclaimed, "whatever's the use o' you goin' backto 1876! Why don't ye jest set up as the inventor o' this machine? I'msure thet ought to make yer everlastin' fortune!"

  "Oh, I thought o' that," he said. "But it's one thing to know how towork a thing an' it's a sight different to know how it's made an' allthat. The future man tried to explain all the new scientific principlesthat was mixed into it--fer makin' power an' all--but I couldn'tunderstand that part at all."

  "An' besides," exclaimed Phoebe, "it's a heap more fun to be the onlyones can use the thing, I think."

  "Yes--seems like fun's all we're thinkin' of," said Rebecca, rising andmoving toward the kitchen. "We're jest settin' round doin' nothin'. I'llfinish with the breakfast things if you'll put to rights and dust,Phoebe. We can't make beds till night with the windows tight shut."

  These suggestions were followed by the two women, while Droop, pickingup the newspaper which Rebecca had brought, sat down to read.

  After a long term of quiet reading, his attention was distracted byRebecca's voice.

  "I declare to goodness, Phoebe!" she was saying. "Seems's if everychance you get, you go to readin' those old letters."

  "Well, the's one or two that's spelled so funny and written so badlythat I haven't been able yet to read them," Phoebe replied.

  Droop looked over his paper. Phoebe and her sister were seated nearone of the windows on the opposite side.

  "P'raps I could help ye, Cousin Phoebe," he said. "I've got mightystrong eyesight."

  "Oh, 'tain't a question of eyesight," Phoebe replied, laughing.

  "Oh, I see," said Droop, smiling slyly, "letters from some young feller,eh?"

  He winked knowingly at Rebecca, who drew herself up indignantly andlooked severely down at her knitting.

  Phoebe blushed, but replied quite calmly:

  "Yes--some of them from a young man, but they weren't any of themwritten to me."

  "No?" said Droop. "Who was they to--'f I may ask?"

  "They were all written to this lady."

  Phoebe held something out for Droop's inspection, and he walked overto take it.

  He recognized at once the miniature on ivory which he had seen oncebefore in Peltonville.

  "Well," he said, taking the portrait from her and eying it with his headon one side, "if ye hadn't said 'twasn't you, I'd certainly a-thought'twas. I'd mos' sworn 'twas your photygraph, Cousin Phoebe. Who is it,anyway?"

  "It isn't anybody," she replied, "but it _was_ Mistress Mary Burton ofBurton Hal
l. I'm one of her descendants, an' these are some letters shehad with her in this funny old carved box when she disappeared with herlover. They fled to Holland and were married there, the story goes, an'one o' their children came over in the early days o' New England. Hebrought the letters an' the picture with him."

  "Well, now! I want to know!" exclaimed Droop, in great admiration."'Twouldn't be perlite, I s'pose, to ask to hear some o' them letters?"

  "Would you like to hear some of them?" Phoebe asked.

  "I would fer a fact," he replied.

  "Well, bring your chair over here and I'll read you one," she said.

  Droop seated himself near the two sisters and Phoebe unfolded a largeand rather rough sheet of paper, yellow with age, on which Droopperceived a bold scrawl in a faded ink.

  "This seems to have been from Mary Burton's father," Phoebe said. "Idon't think he can have been a very nice man. This is what he says:

  "'Dear Poll'--horrid nickname, isn't it?"

  "Seems so to me," said Droop.

  "'Dear Poll--I'm starting behind the grays for London, on my way, as youknow ere this, to be knighted by her Majesty. I send this ahead byGregory on Bess--she being fast enow for my purpose--which is to getthee straight out of the grip of that'----"

  Phoebe hesitated.

  "He uses a bad word there," she said, in a low tone. "I'll go on andleave that out."

  "Yes, do," said Droop.

  "'That ---- aunt of thine,'" she continued, reading. "'I know her tricksand I learn how she hath suffered that'----"

  "There's another," said Phoebe.

  "Skip it," said Droop, gravely.

  "'That ---- milk-and-water popinjay to come courting my Poll. So see youfollow Gregory, mistress, and without wait or parley come with him tothe Peacock Inn, where I lie to-night. The grays are in fine fettle andthy black mare grows too fat for want of exercise. Thy mother-in-lawcommands thy instant return with Gregory, having much business forwardwith preparing gowns and fallals against our presentation to herMajesty.'"

  "It is signed 'Isaac Burton,'" said Phoebe, "and see, the paper wassealed with a steel gauntlet."

  Droop examined the seal carefully and then returned it, saying:

  "Looks to me like a bunch of 'sparagus tumbled over on one side."

  Phoebe laughed.

  "But what always interests me most in this letter is the postscript,"she said. "It reads: 'Thy mother thinks thou wilt make better speed if Imake thee to know that the players thou wottest of'----"

  "What's a 'wottest'?" said Droop, in puzzled tones.

  "Wottest means knowest--haven't you read Shakespeare?"

  "No," said Droop.

  "'The players thou wottest of are to stop at the Peacock, and will begiving some sport there.'

  "Now, those players always interest me," Phoebe continued. "Somehow Ican't help but believe that William Shakespeare----"

  "Fiddle ends!" Rebecca interrupted. "I've heard that talk fifty-leventimes an' I'm pinin' fer relief. Mr. Droop, would you mind tellin' uswhat the time o' year is now. Seems to me that sun has whirled in an'out o' that window 'nough times to bring us back to the days o'creation."

  Droop consulted the date indicator and announced that it was nowSeptember 5, 1897.

  "Not a year yet!" cried the two women together.

  "Why, no," said Copernicus. "Ye see, we are takin' about three hours tolose a year."

  "Fer the lands sakes!" cried Rebecca. "Can't we go a little faster?"

  "My gracious, yes!" said Droop. "But I'm 'fraid o' the side weight ferye."

  "I'd rather hev side weight than wait forever," said Rebecca, with agrim smile.

  "D'ye think ye could stand a little more speed, Cousin Phoebe?" saidDroop.

  "We might try," she replied.

  "Well, let's try, then," he said, and turned promptly to theengine-room.

  Very soon the difference in speed was felt, and as they found themselvestravelling more rapidly in a circle, the centrifugal force now becamedistinctly perceptible.

  The two women found themselves obliged to lean somewhat toward thecentral pole to counteract this tendency, and as Copernicus emerged fromthe engine-room he came toward the others at a decided angle to thefloor.

  "There! now ye feel the side weight," he exclaimed.

  "My, ain't it funny!" exclaimed Rebecca. "Thet's the way I've felt aforenow when the cars was goin' round a curve--kinder topplin' like."

  "Why, that is the centrifugal force," Phoebe said, with dignity.

  "It's the side weight--that's what I call it," Droop replied,obstinately, and for some time there was silence.

  "How many years back are we makin' by the hour now, Mr. Droop?" Rebeccaasked at length.

  "Jest a little over two hours fer a year now," he replied.

  "Well," said Rebecca, in a discontented tone, "I think the oldPanchronicle is rayther a slow actin' concern, considerin' th' amount o'side weight it makes. I declare I'm mos' tired out leanin' over to oneside, like old man Titus's paralytic cow."

  Phoebe laughed and Droop replied:

  "If ye can't stand it or set it, why lay, Cousin Rebecca. The's goodsettles all 'round."

  With manifestly injured feelings Droop hunted up a book and sat down toread in silence. The Panchronicon was his pet and he did not relish itsbeing thus contemned.

  The remainder of the morning was spent in almost completely silent workor reading. Droop scarce took his eyes from his book. Phoebe spentpart of the time deep in the Baconian work and part of the timecontemplating the monotonous landscape. Rebecca was dreaming of herfuture past--or her past future, while her knitting grew steadily uponits needles.

  The midday meal was duly prepared and disposed of, and, as the afternoonwore away, the three travellers began to examine the date indicator andto ask themselves surreptitiously whether or not they actually felt anyyounger. They took sly peeps at each other's faces to observe, ifpossible, any signs of returning youth.

  By supper-time there was certainly a less aged air about each of thethree and the elders inwardly congratulated themselves upon theunmistakable effects of another twelve hours.

  Not long after the supper dishes had been washed, Rebecca took Phoebeaside and said:

  "Phoebe, it seems to me you'd ought to be goin' to bed right soon,now. You're only 'bout eighteen years old at present, an' you'llcertainly begin to grow smaller again very soon. It wouldn't hardly berespectable fer ye to do yer shrinkin' out here."

  This view of the probabilities had not yet struck Phoebe.

  "Why, no!" she exclaimed, rather startled. "I--I don't know's I thoughtabout it. But I certainly don't want Mr. Droop to see me when my clothesbegin to hang loose."

  Then a new problem presented itself.

  "Come to think of it, Rebecca," she said, dolefully, "what'll I do allthe time between full-grown and baby size? I didn't bring anything butthe littlest clothes, you know."

  "Thet's so," said Rebecca, thoughtfully. Then, after a pause: "I don'tsee but ye'll hev to stay abed, Phoebe, till we get to th' end," shesaid, sympathetically.

  "There it is," said Phoebe, crossly. "Gettin' sent to beda'ready--even before I expected it."

  "But 'tain't that, Phoebe," said Rebecca, with great concern. "I ain'tsendin' ye to bed--but--but--whatever else _can_ ye do with a _man_ inthe house!"

  "Nothin'," Phoebe replied, with a toss of her chin.

  She crossed the room and held out her hand to Droop.

  "Good-night, Mr. Droop," she said.

  Surprised at this sudden demonstration of friendship, he took her handand tipped his head to one side as he looked into her face.

  "Next time you see me, I don't suppose you'll know me, I'll be solittle," she said, trying to laugh.

  "I--I wish't you'd call me Cousin Copernicus," he said, coaxingly.

  "Well, p'raps I will when I see ye again," she replied, freeing her handwith a slight effort.

  Rebecca retired shortly after her sister and Copernicus was once moreleft a
lone. He rubbed his hands slowly, with a sense of satisfaction,and glanced at the date dial.

  "July 2, 1892," he said to himself. "I'm only thirty-four years old.Don't feel any older than that, either."

  He walked deliberately to the shutters, closed them and turned on theelectric light. Surrounded thus by the wonted conditions of night, itwas not long before he began to yawn. He removed his coat and shoes andlay back in an easy chair to meditate at ease. He faced toward the poleso that the "side weight" would tend to press him gently backward intohis chair and therefore not annoy him by calling for constant opposingeffort.

  He soon dozed off and was whisked through a quick succession offantastic dreams. Then he awoke suddenly, and as though someone hadspoken to him. Listening intently, he only heard the low murmur of themachinery below and the ticking of the many clocks and indicators allabout him.

  He closed his eyes, intending to take up that last dream where he hadbeen interrupted. He recollected that he had been on the very point ofsome delightful consummation, but just what it was he could not recall.

  Sleep evaded him, however. His mind reverted to the all-importantquestion of the recovered years. He began to plan again.

  This time he should not make his former mistakes. No--he would not onlymake immense wealth promptly with the great inventions, he would give upliquor forever. It would be so easy in 1876, for he had never taken upthe unfortunate habit until 1888.

  Then--rich, young, sober, he would seek out a charming, rosy,good-natured girl--something of the type of Phoebe, for instance. Theywould be married and----

  He got up at this and looked at the clock. It was after midnight. Helooked at the date indicator. It said October 9, 1890.

  "Well, come!" he thought. "The old Panchronicon is a steady vessel.She's keepin' right on."

  He put on his shoes again, for something made him nervous and he wishedto walk up and down.

  The first thing he did after his shoes were donned was to gaze athimself in the mirror.

  "Don't look any younger," he thought, "but I feel so." He walked acrossthe room once or twice.

  "Shucks!" he exclaimed. "Couldn't expect to look younger in these oldduds, an' at this time o' night, too--tired like I am."

  For some time he walked up and down, keeping his eyes resolutely fromthe date indicator. Finally he threw himself down in the chair again andclosed his eyes, nervous and exhausted. He did not feel sleepy, but hemust have dozed, for the next time he looked at the clock it washalf-past one.

  He put out the light and crossed to a settle. Here he lay at full lengthcourting sleep. When he awoke, he thought, refreshed and alert, he wouldshow his youth unmistakably.

  But sleep would not return. He tried every position, every trick forpropitiating Morpheus. All in vain.

  At length he rose again and turned on the light. It was two-fifteen.This time he could not resist looking at the date indicator.

  It said September 30, 1889.

  Again he looked into the glass.

  "My, but I'm nervous!" he thought as he turned away, disappointed. "Ilook older than ever!"

  As he paced the floor there all alone, he began to doubt for the firsttime the success of his plan.

  "It _must_ work right!" he said aloud. "Didn't I go back five weekswith that future man? Didn't he----"

  A fearful thought struck him. Had he perhaps made a mistake? Had theybeen cutting meridians the wrong way?

  But no; the indicator could not be wrong, and that registered aconstantly earlier date.

  "Ah, I know!" he suddenly exclaimed. "I'll ask Cousin Phoebe."

  He reflected a moment. Yes--the idea was a good one. She would be onlyfifteen years old by this time, and must certainly have changed to anextent of which he was at his age incapable. Besides, she had beenasleep, and nervous insomnia could not be responsible for retarding theevidences of youth in her case. His agony of dread lest this greatexperiment fail made him bold.

  He walked directly to Phoebe's door and knocked--first softly, thenmore loudly.

  "Cousin Phoebe--Cousin Phoebe," he said.

  After a few calls and knockings, there came a sleepy reply from within.

  "Well--what--who is it?"

  "It's Cousin Copernicus," he said. "Please tell me. Hev ye shrunk anyyet?"

  "What--how?" The tones were very sleepy indeed.

  "Hev ye shrunk any yet? Are ye growin' littler in there? Oh, please feelfer the footboard with yer toe!"

  He waited and heard a rustling as of someone moving in bed.

  "Did ye feel the footboard?" he asked.

  "Yes--kicked it good--now let me sleep." She was ill-natured with muchdrowsiness.

  Poor Droop staggered away from the door as though he had been struck.

  All had failed, then. They were circling uselessly. Those inventionswould never be his. The golden dreams he had been nursing--oh,impossible! It was unbearable!

  He put both hands to his head and walked across the room. He pausedhalf-consciously before a small closet partly hidden in the wall.

  With an instinctive movement, he touched a spring and the door slidback. He drew from the cupboard thus revealed two bottles and a glassand returned to seat himself at the table.

  A half an hour later the Panchronicon, circling in the outer brightnessand silence, contained three unconscious travellers, and one of them satwith his arms flung across the table supporting his head, and beside himan empty bottle.