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“What is it for?”

“I will show you. Suppose it begins to rain, I untie this string and open the umbrella, so! Now don’t be alarmed! It is perfectly harmless, I assure you!”

The holy man had retreated suddenly into the furthest recess of the cell.

“While it rains I hold it in this manner. When it clears, I shut it up, thus, and put it under my arm.”

“Wonderful! wonderful!” exclaimed the Hermit. “I thought it was an implement of war. The world beyond us evidently has surpassed us.”

“This is nothing to the things I will show you,” said the Professor. “I see you have an hour-glass here. Is this the only way you have of recording time?”

“We have the sun.”

“No clocks or watches?”

“I do not know what they are.”

“Tilly, show him your watch. This is the machine with which we tell time.”

“Alive, is it?” asked the Hermit.

The Professor explained the mechanism to him in detail.

“You are indeed a learned man,” said the recluse. “But I have forgotten a part of my duty. Will you not take some food?”

“Well,” said the Professor, “if you have anything about in the form of a lunch, I think I could dispose of it.”