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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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Amazing Stories, November 1927, with
"The Machine Man of Ardathia"
"I was conscious of being scooped up and drawn forward with
in-
conceivable speed. For one breathless moment I hung suspended..."
HERE is an astounding fourth-dimensional story, every bit as good as any that we have read in years. What will humanity look like 30,000 years hence? If, since the Egyptians or Romans, we have traveled to our present stage of development in the space of some 2,000 years, how high will the human have ascended in 30,000 years? Our new author has written excellent science into a most unusual and interesting story that can not fail to grip you.
DO not know what to believe. Sometimes I am positive I dreamed it all. But then there is the matter of the heavy rocker. That undeniably did disappear. Perhaps someone played a trick on me. But who would stoop to a deception so bizarre, merely for the purpose of befuddling the wits of an old man? Perhaps someone stole the rocker. But why should anyone steal the rocker? It was, it is true, a sturdy piece of furniture, but hardly valuable enough to excite the cupidity of a thief. Besides the rocker was in its place when I sat down in the easy-chair. Of course, I may be lying.
Peters, to whom I was misguided enough to tell everything on the night of its occurrence, wrote the story for his paper, and the editor of "The Chieftain" says as much in his editorial of the 15th, when he remarks that "Mr. Matthews seems to be the possessor of an imagination equal that of an H.G. Wells." And, considering the nature of my story, I am quite ready to forgive him for doubting my veracity.
However, the few friends who know me better think that I had dined a little too wisely or too well, and had been visited with a nightmare.
Hodge suggested that the Jap who cleans my rooms had, for some reason, removed the rocker from its place, and that I merely took its presence for granted when I sat down. The Jap strenuously denies having done so.
I must pause a minute here to explain that I have two rooms and a bath on the third floor of a modern apartment house fronting the Lake. Since my wife's death three years ago I have lived thus, taking my breakfast and lunch at a restaurant, generally taking my dinners at the club. I may as well confess that I have a room rented in a down-town office building where I spend a few hours every day to work on my book, which is designed to be a critical analysis of the fallacies inherent in the Marxian theory of economics, embracing at the same time a thorough refutation of Lewis Morgan's "Ancient Society." A rather ambitious undertaking, you will admit, and one not apt to engage the interest of a person given to inventing wild yarns for the purpose of amazing his friends. No; I emphatically deny having invented the story. However, the future will talk for itself. I will merely proceed to put the details of my strange experience on paper, (justice to myself demands that I should do so, so many garbled accounts have appeared in the press), and leave the reader to draw his own conclusions.
CONTRARY to my usual custom I had dined that evening
with Hodge at the Hotel Oaks. Let me emphatically state
that while it is well known among his intimates that Hodge
carries a flask on his hip, I had absolutely nothing of
an intoxicating nature to drink. Hodge will verify this.
About eight-thirty I refused an invitation to attend the
theatre with him and went to my rooms. There I changed
into smoking-jacket and slippers and lit a mild Havana.
The rocking-chair was occupying its accustomed place near
the center of the sitting-room floor. I remember that
clearly because, as usual, I had either to push it aside
or step around it, wondering for the thousandth time as
I did so why that idiotic Jap persisted in placing it in
such an inconvenient spot; and resolving, also for the
thousandth time, to speak to him about it. With a note-book
and pencil placed on the stand beside me, also a copy of
Frederick Engels' "Origin of The Family, Private Property
and the State," I turned on the light in my green-shaded
reading-lamp, switched off all others, and sank with a
sigh of relief into the easy-chair. It was my intention
to make a few notes from Engels' work relative to plural
marriages, showing that he contradicted certain conclusions
of Morgan's when he said... But there; it is sufficient
to state that after a few minutes' work I leaned back
in my chair and closed my eyes. I did not doze; I am
positive of that. My mind was actively engaged in trying
to piece together a sentence that would clearly express my
thought.
I can best describe what happened then by saying there was an explosion. It wasn't that exactly; but at the time it seemed to me there must have been an explosion. A blinding flash of light registered with appalling vividness through the closed lids on the retina of my eyes. My first thought was that someone had dynamited the building; my second, that the electric fuses had blown out. It was some time before I could see clearly. When I could...
"Good Lord," I whispered weakly, "what's that!"
Occupying the space where the rocking-chair had stood (though I did not notice its absence at the time) was a cylinder of what appeared to be glass standing, I should judge, about five feet high. Encased in this cylinder seemed to be a caricature of a man—or a child. I say caricature because, while the cylinder was all of five feet in height, the being inside of it was hardly three. You can imagine my amazement while I stared at this apparition. After awhile I got up and switched on all the lights to better observe it.
You may be wondering why I did not try to call someone in. I can only say that thought never occurred to me. In spite of my age (I am sixty) my nerves are steady and I am not easily frightened. I walked very carefully around the cylinder and viewed the creature inside from all angles. It was stretched out my hand in an effort to touch its surface, but some force prevented my fingers from making the contact; which was very curious. Also, I could detect no movement of the body or limbs of the weird thing inside the glass.
"What I'd like to know," I muttered, "is what you are, where you came from, are you alive, and am I dreaming or am I awake?"
For the first time the creature came to life. One of its tentacle-like hands, holding a metal tube, darted to its mouth. From the tube shot a white streak, which fastened itself to the cylinder.
"Ah," came a clear, metallic voice, "English, Primitive, I perceive; probably of the twentieth century."
The words were uttered with an indescribable intonation; much as if a foreigner were speaking our language. Yet more than that... as if he were speaking a language long dead. I don't know why that thought should have occurred to me then. Perhaps...
"So you can talk," I exclaimed.
The creature gave a metallic chuckle.
"As you say, I can talk."
"Then tell me what you are."
"I am an Ardathian. A machine Man of Ardathia. And you... Tell me, is that really hair on your head?"
"Yes," I replied.
"And those coverings you wear on your body, are they clothes?"
I answered in the affirmative.
"How odd. Then you really are a Primitive; a Prehistoric Man."
The eyes behind the glass shield regarded me intently.
"A pre-historic man!" I exclaimed. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that you are one of that race of early men whose skeletons we have dug up here and there and reconstructed for our schools of biology. Marvelous how our scientists have copied you from some fragments of bone! The small head covered with hair; the beast-like jaw; the abnormally large body and legs; the artificial coverings made of cloth... even your language!"
FOR the first time I began to suspect that I was the
victim of a hoax. I got up and walked carefully around the
cylinder but could detect no outside agency controlling
the contraption. Besides, it was absurd to think that
anyone would go to all the trouble of constructing such a
complicated apparatus as this appeared to be, merely for
the sake of a practical joke. Nevertheless, I looked out on
the landing.
I came back and resumed my seat in front of the cylinder.
"Pardon me," I said, "but you referred to me as belonging to a period much more remote than yours."
"That is correct. If I am not mistaken in my calculations, you are thirty thousand years in the past. What date is this?"
"June 5th, 1926," I replied feebly.
The creature went through some contortions, sorted a few metal tubes with its hands, and then announced in its metallic voice:
"Computed in terms of your method of reckoning, I have travelled back through time exactly twenty-eight thousand years, nine months, three weeks, two days, seven hours, and a certain number of minutes and seconds which it is useless for me to enumerate exactly."
It was at this point that I endeavored to make sure I was wide awake and in full possession of my faculties. I got up, selected a fresh cigar from the humidor, struck a light and began puffing away. After a few puffs I laid it beside the one I had been smoking earlier in the evening. I found it there later. Incontestable proof...
I said that I am a man of steady nerves. I am. I sat down in front of the cylinder again determined this time, to find out what I could about the incredible creature within.
"You say you have traveled back through time thousands of years. How is that possible?"
"By verifying time as a fourth dimension and perfecting devices for traveling in it."
"In what manner?"
"I do not know whether I can explain it exactly, in your language, and you are too primitive and unevolved to understand mine. However I shall try. Know then that space is as much a relative thing as time. In itself, aside from its relation to matter, it has no existence. You can neither see nor touch it, yet you move freely in space. Is that clear?"
"It sounds like Einstein's theory."
"Einstein?"
"One of our great scientists and mathematicians," I explained.
"So you have scientists and mathematicians? Wonderful! That bears out what Hoomi says. I must remember to tell... However, to resume my explanation. Time is apprehended in the same manner as is space—that is in its relation to matter. When you measure space, you do so by letting your measuring rod leap from point to point of matter. Or, in the case of spanning the void, let us say, from the earth to Venus, you start and end with matter, remarking that between lies so many miles of space. But it is clear that you see and touch no space, merely spanning the distance between two points of matter with the vision or the measuring rod. You do the same when you compute time with the sun or by means of the clock, which I see hanging on the wall there. Time, then, is no more of an abstraction than is space. If it is possible for man to move freely in space, it is possible for him to move freely in time. We Ardathians are beginning to do so."
"But how?"
"I am afraid your limited intelligence could not grasp what I could tell. You must realize that compared to us you are hardly as much as human. When I look at you, I perceive your body is enormously larger than your head. This means that you are dominated by animal passions and that your mental capacity is not very high."
That this weirdly humorous thing inside a glass cylinder should come to such a conclusion regarding me, made me smile.
"If any of my fellow citizens should see you," I replied, "they would consider you—well, absurd."
"That is because they would judge by the only standard they know—themselves. In Ardathia you would be regarded as bestial. In fact, that is exactly how your reconstructed skeletons are regarded. Tell me, is it true that you nourish your bodies by taking food through your mouths into your stomachs?"
"Yes."
"And are at that stage of bodily evolution when you will eliminate the waste products through the alimentary canal?"
I lowered my head.
"How disgusting."
The unwinking eyes regarded me intently. Then something happened which startled me very much. The creature raised a glass tube to its face. From the end of the tube leaped a purple ray which came through the glass casing and played over the room.
"THERE is no need to be alarmed," said the metallic
voice. "I was merely viewing your habitat and making some
deductions. Correct me if I am wrong, please. You are an
English-speaking man of the twentieth century. You and
your kind live in cities and houses. You eat, digest, and
reproduce your young, much as do the animals from which you
have sprung. You use crude machines and have an elementary
understanding of physics and chemistry. Correct me if I am
wrong, please."
"You are right to a certain extent," I replied. "But I am not interested in having you tell me what I am. I know that. I wish to know what you are. You claim to have come from some thirty thousand years in the future, but you advance no evidence to support the claim. How do I know you are not a trick, a fake, an hallucination of mine. You say you can move freely in time. How is it you have never come this way before? Tell me something about yourself; I am curious."
"Your questions are well put." replied the voice, "and I shall seek to answer them. Know then, that I am a Machine Man of Ardathia. It is true we are beginning to move in time as well as in space: but note that I say 'beginning.' Our Time Machines are very crude as yet, and I am the first Ardathian to penetrate the past beyond a period of six thousand years. You must realize that a time traveler runs certain hazards. At any place on the road, he may materialize inside of a solid of some sort. In that case, he is almost certain to be blown up or otherwise destroyed. Such was the constant danger until I perfected my enveloping ray of —— I cannot name or describe it in your tongue, but if you approach me too closely you will feel its resistance. This ray has the effect of disintegrating and dispersing any body of matter inside of which a time traveler may materialize. Perhaps you were aware of a great light when I appeared in your room? I probably took shape, within a body of matter and the ray destroyed it."
"The rocking-chair!" I exclaimed. "It was standing on the spot you now occupy."
"Then it has been reduced to its original atoms. This is a wonderful moment for me. My ray has proved an unqualified success for the second time. It not only removes any hindering matter from about the time-traveler but also creates a void within which he is perfectly safe from harm. But to resume...
"It is hard to believe that we Ardathians evolved from such creatures as you. Our written history does not go back to a time when men nourished themselves by taking food into their stomachs through their mouths, digested it, or reproduced their young in the animal-like fashion in which you do. The earliest men of whom we have any written records were the Bi-Chanics. They lived about fifteen thousand years before our era and were already well along the road of mechanical evolution when their civilization fell. The Bi-Chanics vaporized their food substances and breathed them through the nostril, excreting the waste products of the body through the pores of the skin. Their children were brought to the point of birth in ecto-genetic incubators. There is enough authentic evidence existing to prove that the Bi-Chanics had perfected the use of mechanical hearts and were crudely able to make... I cannot find the words to explain just what they made, but it doesn't matter. The point is, that while they had only partly subordinated machinery to their use, they are. the earliest race of human beings of whom we possess any real knowledge, and it was their period of time that I was seeking, when I inadvertently came too far and landed in yours."
The metallic voice ceased for a moment and I took advantage of the pause to speak. "I do not know a thing about the Bi-Chanics, or whatever it is you call them." I remarked, "but they were certainly not the first to make mechanical hearts. I remember reading in the paper only several months ago about a Russian scientist who kept a dog alive four hours by means of a gasoline motor which pumped the blood through the dog's body."
"You mean the motor was used as a heart?"
"Exactly."
The Ardathian (for so I will call the creature in the cylinder henceforth) made a quick motion with one of its hands.
"I have made a note of your information; it is very interesting."
"Furthermore," I pursued, "a year or two ago I read an article in one of our current magazines telling how a Vienna surgeon was hatching out rabbits and guinea pigs in ecto-genetic incubators."
The Ardathian made another quick gesture with its hand. I could see that my news excited it.
"Perhaps," I said, not without a feeling of satisfaction (for the casual allusion to myself as hardly human had irked my pride) "perhaps you will find it as interesting to visit the people of five hundred years from now, let us say, as you would to visit the Bi-Chanics."
"I can assure you," replied the metallic voice of the Ardathian, "that if I succeed in returning successfully to Ardathia, those periods will be thoroughly explored. I can only express surprise at your having advanced as far as you have, and wonder why it is you have made no practical use of your knowledge."
"Sometimes I wonder myself." I returned. "But I am very much interested in learning more about yourself and your times. If you would resume your story...."
"With pleasure," replied the Ardathian. "In Ardathia, we do not live in houses or in cities. Neither do we nourish ourselves as do you, or as did the Bi-Chanics. The chemical fluid you see circulating through these tubes which run into and through my body has taken the place of blood. The fluid is produced by the action of a light-ray on certain life-giving elements in the air. It is constantly being produced in those tubes under my feet and driven through my body by a mechanism too intricate for me to describe. The same fluid circulates through my body only once, nourishing it and gathering all impurities as it goes. Having completed its revolution, it is dissipated and cast forth by means of another ray which carries it back into the surrounding air. Have you noticed the transparent substance enclosing me?"
"The cylinder of glass, you mean?"
"Glass! What do you mean by glass?"
"Why, that there," I said, pointing at one of the panes of glass in the window.
THE Ardathian directed a metal tube at the spot
indicated. A purple streak flashed out, hovered a moment on
the pane, and then withdrew.
"No," came the metallic voice, "not that. The cylinder, as you call it, is made of a transparent substance, very strong and practically unbreakable. Nothing can penetrate it but the rays which you see, and the two whose action I have described above, which are invisible. Know then that we Ardathians are not delivered of the flesh; nor are we introduced into incubators as ova taken from female bodies, as were the Bi-Chanics. Among the Ardathians there are no males or females. The cell from which we are to develop is created synthetically. It is fertilized by means of a ray and then put into a cylinder such as you observe surrounding me. As the embryo develops, the various tubes and mechanical devices are introduced into the body by our mechanics and become an integral part of it. When the young Ardathian is born, he does not leave the case in which he has developed. That case—or cylinder, as you call it,—protects him from the action of a hostile environment. If it were to break and expose him to the elements, he would perish miserably. Do you follow me?"
"Not quite," I confessed. "You say that you have evolved from men like us, and then go on to state that you are synthetically conceived and machine made. I do not see how this evolution was possible."
"And you may never understand! Nevertheless, I shall try to explain. Did you not tell me you had wise ones among you who are experimenting with mechanical hearts and ecto-genetic incubators? Tell me, have you not others engaged in tests tending to show that it is the action of environment, and not the passing of time, which accounts for the aging of organisms?"
"Well," I said hesitatingly, "I have heard tell of chicken hearts being kept alive in special containers which protect them from their normal environment."
"Ah," exclaimed the metallic voice, "but Hoomi will be astounded when he learns that such experiments were carried on by pre-historic men fifteen thousand years before the Bi-Chanics! Listen closely, for what you have stated about chicken hearts provides a starting point from which you may be able to follow my explanation of man's evolution from your time to mine. Of the thousands of years separating your day from that of the Bi-Chanics I have no authentic knowledge. My exact knowledge begins with the Bi-Chanics. They were the first among men to realize that man's bodily advancement lay on and through the machine. They perceived that man only became human when he fashioned tools; that the tools increased the length of his arms, the grip of his hands, the strength of his muscles. They observed that with the aid of the machine, man could circle the earth, speak to the planets, gaze intimately at the stars. We will increase our span of life on earth, said the Bi-Chanics, by throwing the protection of the machine, the things that the machine produces, around and into our bodies. This they did, to the best of their ability, and increased their longevity to an average of about two hundred years. Then came the Tri-Namics. More advanced than the Bi-Chanics, they reasoned that old age was caused, not by the passage of time, but by the action of environment on the matter of which men were composed. It is this reasoning which causes the men of your time to experiment with chicken hearts. The Tri-Namics sought to perfect devices for safe-guarding the flesh against the wear and tear of its environment. They made envelopes—cylinders—in which they attempted to bring embryos to birth and to rear children, but they met with only partial success."
"You speak of the Bi-Chanics and of the Tri-Namics," I said, "as if they were two distinct races of people. Yet you imply that the latter evolved from the former. If the Bi-Chanics civilization fell, did any period of time elapse between that fall and the rise of the Tri-Namics? And how did the latter inherit from their predecessors?"
"It is because of your language, which I find very crude and inadequate, that I have not already made that clear," answered the Ardathian. "The Tri-Namics were really a more progressive part of the Bi-Chanics. When I said the civilization of the latter fell. I did not mean what that implies in your language. You must realize that fifteen thousand years in your future, the race of man was, scientifically speaking, making rapid strides. It was not always possible for backward or conservative minds to adjust themselves to new discoveries. Minority groups, composed mostly of the young, forged ahead, made new deductions from old facts, proposed radical changes, entertained new ideas, and finally culminated in what I have alluded to as the Tri-Namics. Inevitably, in the course of time, the Bi-Chanics died off, and conservative methods with them. That is what I meant when I said their civilization fell. In the same fashion did we follow the Tri-Namics. When the latter succeeded in raising children inside the cylinder, they destroyed themselves. Soon all children were born in this manner. In time the fate of the Tri-Namics became that of the Bi-Chanics, leaving behind them the Machine Men of Ardathia, who differed radically from them in bodily structure—so many human nuclei inside of machines—yet none the less their direct descendants."
For the first time, I began to get an inkling of what the Ardathian meant when it alluded to itself as a Machine Man. The appalling story of man's final evolution into a controlling center that directed a mechanical body, awoke something akin to fear in my heart. If it were true, what of the soul, spirit, God....
The metallic voice went on.
"You must not imagine that the early Ardathians possessed a cylinder as invulnerable as the one which protects me. The first envelopes of this nature were made of a pliable substance, which the wear and tear of environment wore out within three centuries. The substance composing the envelope has gradually been improved, perfected, until now it is immune for fifteen hundred years to anything save a powerful explosion or some other major catastrophe."
"Fifteen hundred years!" I exclaimed.
"Barring accident, that is the length of time an Ardathian lives. But to us fifteen hundred years is no longer than a hundred would be to you. Remember, please, that time is relative. Twelve hours of your time is a second of ours, and a year.... But suffice it to say that very few Ardathians live out their allotted span. Since we are constantly engaged in hazardous experiments and dangerous expeditions, accidents are many. Thousands of our brave explorers have plunged into the past and never returned. They probably materialized inside solids and were annihilated. But I believe I have finally overcome this danger with my disintegrating ray."
"And how old are you?"
"As you count time, five hundred and seventy years. You must understand that there has been no change in my body since birth. If the cylinder were everlasting, or proof against accident, I should live forever. It is the wearing out, or breaking up of the envelope, which exposes us to the dangerous forces of nature and causes death. Some of our scientists are engaged in trying to perfect means for building up the cylinder as fast as the wear and tear of environment breaks it down; others are seeking to rear embryos to birth with nothing but rays for covering—rays incapable of harming the organism, yet immune to dissipation by environment and incapable of destruction by explosion. So far they have been unsuccessful; but I have every confidence in their ultimate triumph. Then we shall be as immortal as the planet on which we live."
I STARED at the cylinder, at the creature inside the
cylinder, at the ceiling, the four walls of the room, and
then back again at the cylinder. I pinched the soft flesh
of my thigh with my fingers. I was awake all right; there
could be no doubt about that.
"Are there any questions you would like to ask?" came the metallic voice.
"Yes," I said at last, half fearfully. "What joy can there be in existence for you? You have no sex; you cannot mate. It seems to me," I hesitated, "it seems to me that no hell could be greater than centuries of living caged alive inside that thing you call an envelope. Now I have full command of my limbs and can go where I please. I can love..." I came to a breathless stop, awed by the lurid light which suddenly gleamed in the winkless eyes.
"Poor pre-historic mammal," came the answer, "how could you, groping in the dawn of human existence, comprehend what is beyond your lowly environment! Compared to you, we are as gods. No longer are our loves and hates the reaction of viscera. Our thoughts, our thinking, our emotions are conditioned, molded to the extent we control the immediate environment. There is no such thing as mind—of the... But it is impossible to continue. Your vocabulary is too limited. Your mentality—it is not the word I like to use, but as I have repeatedly said, your language is woefully inadequate—has a restricted range of but a few thousand words. Therefore I cannot explain further. Only the same lack—in a different fashion, of course, and with objects instead of words—hinders the free movements of your limbs. You have command of them, you say. Poor primitive, do you realize how shackled you are with nothing but your hands and feet! You augment them, of course, with a few machines; but they are crude and cumbersome. It is you who are caged alive and not I. I have broken through the walls of your cage; have shaken off its shackles; have gone free. Behold the command I have of my limbs!"
From an extended tube shot a streak of white—like a funnel—whose radius was great enough to encircle my seated body. I was conscious of being scooped up and drawn forward with inconceivable speed. For one breathless moment I hung suspended against the cylinder itself, the winkless eyes not an inch from my own. In that moment I had the sensation of being probed, handled. Several times I was revolved, as a man might twirl a stick. Then I was back in the easy-chair again, white, shaken.
"It is true that I never leave the envelope in which I am encased," continued the metallic voice. "But I have at my command rays which can bring me anything I desire. In Ardathia are machines—machines it would be useless for me to describe to you—with which I can walk, fly, move mountains, delve in the earth, investigate the stars, and loose forces of which you have no conception. Those machines are mechanical parts of my body, extensions of my limbs. I take them off and put them on at will. With their help I can view one continent while busily employed in another. With their help I can make time-machines, harness rays, and plunge for thirty thousand years into the past. Let me again illustrate."
The tentacle-like hand of the Ardathian waved a tube. The five foot cylinder glowed with an intense light, spun like a top, and so spinning, dissolved into space. Even as I gaped like one petrified—perhaps twenty seconds elapsed—the cylinder reappeared with the same rapidity. The metallic voice announced:
"I have just been five years into your future."
"My future!" I exclaimed. "How can that be when I have not lived it yet?"
"But of course you have lived it."
I stared, bewildered.
"Could I visit my past if you had not lived your future?"
"I do not understand," I said feebly. "It doesn't seem possible that while I am here, actually, in this room, you should be able to travel ahead in time and find out what I shall be doing in a future I haven't reached yet."
"That is because you are unable to grasp intelligently what time is. Think of it as a dimension—a fourth dimension—which stretches like a road ahead and behind you."
"But even then," I protested, "I could only be at one place at a given time on that road, and not where I am and somewhere else at the same second."
"You are never anywhere at any time," replied the metallic voice, "save always in the past or the future. But I see it is useless to try to acquaint you with a simple truth, thirty thousand years ahead of your ability to understand it. As I said, I traveled five years into your future. Men were wrecking this building."
"Tearing down this place? Nonsense, it was only erected two years ago."
"Nevertheless, they were tearing it down. I sent forth my visual ray to locate you. You were..."
"Yes, yes," I queried eagerly.
"In a great room with numerous other men. They were all doing a variety of odd things. There was..."
At that moment, a heavy knock was heard on the door of my room.
"WHAT'S the matter, Matthews?" called a loud voice.
"What are you talking about all this time? Are you
sick?"
I uttered an exclamation of annoyance because I recognized the voice of John Peters, a newspaper man who occupied the apartment next to mine. My first intention was to tell him I was busy, but the next moment I had a better idea. Here was someone to whom I could show the cylinder, and the creature inside of it! someone to bear witness to having seen it besides myself. I hurried to the door and threw it open.
"Quick," I said, grasping him by the arm and hauling him into the room. "What do you think of that?"
"Think of what?" he demanded.
"Why of that there," I began, pointing with a finger, and then stopping short, with my mouth wide open; for on the spot where a few seconds before the cylinder had stood, there was nothing. The envelope and the Ardathian had disappeared.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The material for this manuscript came
into my hands in an odd fashion. About a year after the
press had ceased printing garbled versions of Matthews'
experience, I made the acquaintance of Hodge. I asked him
about Matthews: He said:
"Did you know they've put him in an asylum? You didn't? Well they have. He's batty enough now, poor devil. He was always a little queer, I thought. I went to see him the other day, and it gave me quite a shock, you know, to see him in a ward with a lot of other men, all doing something queer. By the way, Peters told me the other day that the apartment house was to be torn down. The City is going to remove several houses along the Lake Shore to widen the boulevard. He says they won't wreck them for three or four years yet. Funny eh? Would you like to see what Matthews wrote about the affair himself?"
I would; and did. And like Matthews, I submit the story to the reading public herewith, and leave it to them to draw their own conclusions.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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