For, of course, when
my experience that afternoon on the train flashed through my mind, I
guessed at once that the solution of the mystery was in all probability
merely a phonographic device for announcing the hour. Nevertheless, so
thrilling and lifelike in effect were the tones of the voice I had heard
that I confess I had not the nerve to light the gas to investigate till
I had indued my more essential garments. Of course I found no lady in
the room, but only a clock. I had not particularly noticed it on going
to bed, because it looked like any other clock, and so now it continued
to behave until the hands pointed to three. Then, instead of leaving
me to infer the time from the arbitrary symbolism of three strokes on
a bell, the same voice which had before electrified me informed me,
in tones which would have lent a charm to the driest of statistical
details, what the hour was. I had never before been impressed with any
particular interest attaching to the hour of three in the morning, but
as I heard it announced in those low, rich, thrilling contralto tones,
it appeared fairly to coruscate with previously latent suggestions
of romance and poetry, which, if somewhat vague, were very pleasing.
Turning out the gas that I might the more easily imagine the bewitching
presence which the voice suggested, I went back to bed, and lay awake
there until morning, enjoying the society of my bodiless companion and
the delicious shock of her quarter-hourly remarks. To make the illusion
more complete and the more unsuggestive of the mechanical explanation
which I knew of course was the real one, the phrase in which the
announcement of the hour was made was never twice the same.

Right was Solomon when he said that there was nothing new under the sun.
Sardanapalus or Semiramis herself would not have been at all startled
to hear a human voice proclaim the hour. The phonographic clock had
but replaced the slave whose business, standing by the noiseless
water-clock, it was to keep tale of the moments as they dropped, ages
before they had been taught to tick.

In the morning, on descending, I went first to the clerk's office to
inquire for letters, thinking Hamage, who knew I would go to that hotel
if any, might have addressed me there. The clerk handed me a small
oblong box. I suppose I stared at it in a rather helpless way, for
presently he said: "I beg your pardon, but I see you are a stranger. If
you will permit me, I will show you