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They are not, in their first state, less intelligent than the common run of men rather the contrary; but as soon as they have gone so far as to acquire a reputation for wit, their output begins to betray that sad, perfunctory quality which we find in wound-up music-boxes, and that mechanical rattle makes us forget that they ever had brains.
That excellent woman, dressed, painted, and wound-up for the occasion, was volubly delighted with everybody; and being by no means sure of Dick's identity, dashed the more cordiality into her manner, while careful not to commit herself by venturing on his name.
The General said that when he got started he was like a wound-up clock you either had to let it run down or smash it. "'Well, said Cornington, 'Eagle, you seem to take rather a rosy view of things. I do not look at matters quite in the same light that you do. I want to see success assured; then matters may assume the shape you say. But I fear if we fail the result will be otherwise.
Not a sound was heard as I lifted the bumper to my lips; all were breathless in their wound-up anxiety to hear of their countryman who had been selected by Picton for what, too, they knew not yet, and, indeed, at this instant I did not know myself, and nearly laughed outright, for the two of our men who had remained at the table had so well employed their interval of ease as to become very pleasantly drunk, and were listening to my confounded story with all the gravity and seriousness in the world.
"If they had known that you wished it, the entertainment would have been put off," said the prince, who, like a wound-up clock, by force of habit said things he did not even wish to be believed. "Don't tease! Well, and what has been decided about Novosiltsev's dispatch? You know everything." "What can one say about it?" replied the prince in a cold, listless tone. "What has been decided?
I own I began to be dubious, but my companion was firm, and wound-up by saying, "Mind I expect a solemn promise if we fail that you put a pistol to my head rather than let me fall into the hands of that fellow." I smiled maliciously, saying, "What the King of the Pirates?" "King of Horrors," said she, "don't forget now."
But the words had a dead and toneless sound. "The joy of all the afflicted!" Something stirred. It was as though some one's calm and mournful image had flashed up in the distance and died out quietly, without illuminating the deathly gloom. The wound-up clock in the steeple struck. The soldier in the corridor made a noise with his gun or with his saber and he yawned, slowly, at intervals.
It sounded as if a hundred wound-up gramophones had been placed in his room, and all of them, one after another, were shouting with idiotic repetition the words they had been made to shout: "At one o'clock in the afternoon, your Excellency!"
These, and the grim, ancient look of the old building, made the place look a bit dank and ghostly, even by daylight. "The hall was a big place, and well lit by daylight; for which I was not sorry. You see, I had been rather wound-up by Wentworth's yarn. We found one rather funny thing, and that was the great bullmastiff, lying stiff with its neck broken.
Guppy's eye comes back and meets Mr. Smallweed's eye. That engaging old gentleman is still murmuring, like some wound-up instrument running down, "How de do, sir how de how " And then having run down, he lapses into grinning silence, as Mr. Guppy starts at seeing Mr. Tulkinghorn standing in the darkness opposite with his hands behind him.
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