The sudden return of movement and familiar noises, and our natural anxiety about
ourselves (our clothe's were still dreadfully hot, and the fronts of the thighs of Gibberne's
white trousers were scorched a drabbish brown), prevented the minute observations I should
have liked to make on all these things. Indeed, I really made no observations of any
scientific value on that return. The bee, of course, had gone. I looked for that cyclist, but he
was already out of sight as we came into the Upper Sandgate Road or hidden from us by
traffic; the char-a-banc, however, with its people now all alive and stirring, was clattering
along at a spanking pace almost abreast of the nearer church.
We noted, however, that the window-sill on which we had stepped in getting out of the
house was slightly singed, and that the impressions of our feet on the gravel of the path
were unusually deep.
So it was I had my first experience of the New Accelerator. Practically we had been running
about and saying and doing all sorts of things in the space of a second or so of time. We had
lived half an hour while the band had played, perhaps, two bars. But the effect it had upon
us was that the whole world had stopped for our convenient inspection. Considering all
things, and particularly considering our rashness in venturing out of the house, the
experience might certainly have been much more disagreeable than it was. It showed, no
doubt, that Gibberne has still much to learn before his preparation is a manageable
convenience, but its practicability it certainly demonstrated beyond all cavil.
Since that adventure he has been steadily bringing its use under control, and I have several
times, and without the slightest bad result, taken measured doses under his direction;
though I must confess I have not yet ventured abroad again while under its influence. I may
mention, for example, that this story has been written at one sitting and without
interruption, except for the nibbling of some chocolate, by its means. I began at 6.25, and
my watch is now very nearly at the minute past the half-hour. The convenience of securing
a long, uninterrupted spell of work in the midst of a day full of engagements cannot be
exaggerated. Gibberne is now working at the quantitative handling of his preparation, with
especial reference to its distinctive effects upon different types of constitution. He then
hopes to find a Retarder with which to dilute its present rather excessive potency. The
Retarder will, of course, have the reverse effect to the Accelerator; used alone it should
enable the patient to spread a few seconds over many hours of ordinary time,--and so to
maintain an apathetic inaction, a glacier-like absence of alacrity, amidst the most animated
or irritating surroundings. The two things together must necessarily work an entire
revolution in civilised existence. It is the beginning of our escape from that Time Garment
of which Carlyle speaks. While this Accelerator will enable us to concentrate ourselves
with tremendous impact upon any moment or occasion that demands our utmost sense and
vigour, the Retarder will enable us to pass in passive tranquillity through infinite hardship
and tedium. Perhaps I am a little optimistic about the Retarder, which has indeed still to be
discovered, but about the Accelerator there is no possible sort of doubt whatever. Its
appearance upon the market in a convenient, controllable, and assimilable form is a matter
of the next few months. It will be obtainable of all chemists and druggists, in small green
bottles, at a high but, considering its extraordinary qualities, by no means excessive price.
Gibberne's Nervous Accelerator it will be called, and he hopes to be able to supply it in
three strengths: one in 200, one in 900, and one in 2000, distinguished by yellow, pink, and
white labels respectively.