Chapter 9. The Metal Man Points Out His Niceties of Manufacture

The women held their own, independent hierarchy of command over the fort. It was determined not exactly by loyalty or law, as determined the military command, but something very much the same when put in plain terms, which I shall call carrot and stick. We had to obey Old Zach and Major Brown because they were our commanders, but in truth we obeyed them because we loved them. Other men, such as Sergeant Mallory, we didn't obey so conscientiously, we just jumped when they were watching us, because we feared them, and sulked lazily when they were not, because we hated them for making us afraid. But the women's "carrot" was feminine kindness and comeliness - a kind of higher inspiration for which soldiers on the frontier thirsted more than water. However, the kindness and comeliness of civilization would not survive our rough and tumble camps more than five minutes; it was impossible even for the bellest of the belles to survive the sunny camp stool without freckling or perspiring. Therefore, it was that particular specie of kindness and comeliness that, unlike rouge and l'eau de Paris, not only survived the rough and tumble rigors of the frontier camp, it thrived:that brave vivaciousness of which Sarah Borginnis was queen. After watching the two women arguing over the position of the Ladies' Tents, and watching all the women turn from slow, silent obedience to Mrs. Miles to cheerful bustling about behind Sarah, I set myself down with my second to last pint of whiskey, and pondered this. Pretty soon my bottle was empty and I figured everything in terms of carrot and stick regarding human nature. Not only military life, but also republican and despotic government, breaking horses and training dogs and domesticating children, and even the disturbing radicalism that wage labor was more productive than Negro servitude. Now how could that be, I wondered. How could the carrot be mightier than the stick? Drawing in the dirt with just such a stick, I thought myself a regular Professor Morse when I figured that the arc of the stick makes a geometric curve of decreasing volume, while the hunger for the carrot stays steady, an arithmetic horizontal slope. While I got less afraid of Sergeant Mallory, my love for ogling ankles stayed steady as she goes. Notwithstanding that I loved Sarah, and took her for wife, (I mean, camp-wife), I would measure carrot against stick thus:

The stick - Mrs. Miles - commanded our duty, a drooping whip-crack geometric line on a Cartesian graph, while the carrot - Sarah - inspired our love, a steady-as-she-goes arithmetic line; so that while we might obey Mrs. Miles faster, we would obey Sarah longer and harder. And one might further conclude when measuring the further abuse of the stick, it might actually dip below the line of zero, into the negative, which meant disobedience, - like taxes and other tyrannies that lead to the rebellion of 1776.

At any rate, she was the female counterpart to Major Brown, and she led the delegation of chief-women - Mrs. Martha Miles, Mrs. Hampton, and Mrs. Forrest - from the Ladies' Tents - Sarah giving a Dough-Boy back his half darned trousers, Martha setting her wash bucket in the arms of a frightened Music - to inspect this Johnny- Come-Lately, this Prince-President Franklin Stove, this alleged Martian spy and monarch's toady, to ponder and to judge whether or not this stranger, metal or not, was fit company for their boys.

<<But - Tick!...Sss-sss-Tick! - Sss-sss-Tick!...Tick-ick-ick! - I am not a Prince," insisted the benign faced automaton, with little breathes of steam and snorts of coke-smoke. <<I am a Prince-President. Tick! - Tick! - Tick! - It is not a hereditary title. It is scientific nomenclature. Tick! - I am an American automaton - a prince of the artificial aristocracy of machinery. Tick! - Tick! - I have eight lectures,>> he added, somewhat strangely. He reasonings seemed kind of crooked to me.

Moreover, let me add that he hissed and tick-ticked a tiresome amount, the gears of his brain so much more noisy than our own. Therefore, I will, from now on, mark his sentences with the four friendly pips of a poker deck (like this, "# % * @" for "Sss - Tick! - Tick! - Tick! - ") to remind you that his speech seems so steam-piped artificial.

"You have eight lectures?" repeated Captain Seawell. He glanced at Captain Miles' toddy.

<<Do I?>> asked the stranger, clicking and thinking. <<I do. # % * @ - This is my lecture program. # % * @ - As follows:

<<That's them,>> he bowed.

"Hold on thar, sir," objected Sarah, walking over with skirt hem in hand. "I ain't no Yankee scholar, but I know I heard you say eight lectures and you got and you only said seven of `em." To this we all nodded.

"Perhaps he does not wish us to know the eighth. Perhaps it is oratory of an unchristian sort, " suggested Captain Miles dryly, looking sideways over his toddy at his wife, about to suggest she should take her leave, when he happened to see Captain Seawell, who was still eyeing his toddy. Seeing this, he whispered hissingly to Old Sock, "Where's your manners? Hot toddy for Captain Seawell - mind you, Socrates, don't tarry!"

"Yes, perhaps the eighth is an invitation by Great Deimos to sell information? I don't trust this - this gentleman!" suggested Mrs. Miles, with a sideways glance at her husband.

<<# % * @ - The eighth lecture was Your Destiny, Ready Eggs- eggs-stemporaneously-For-The-Asking, but I have found it unpopular. The eighth lecture now is - # % * @ -

Would you like to hear a lecture now? I have eight,>> the ever benign porcelain pumpkin-head emitted in friendly little steam-puffs.

"Why don't you just tell us who you are," said Captain Seawell, with furious cigar puff-puff-puffs. "No conundrums, either."

<<# % * @ - Number 1, then,>> smiled the ever-smiling porcelain cheeks. <<My Metal Nature and Its Niceties. # % * @...>> Something in the machinery of his oversized head ticked thoughtfully for a moment, like an orator taking a long breath, or like a spring being tightly wound. Then he began:

<<Regarding my metal form, ladies and gentleman! I beg you not underestimate the grace and subtle workmanship of its coordinate parts, which mimic in superior majesty the movements of your own bones. # % * @ - Note my ceramic face, which will never bear a blemish. Note the steel wool mustache, which never never needs a trim, and filters my escape-pipes. Note the individually jointed appendages,>> (he demonstrated by snapping his fingers) <<which co-ordinate with clockwork precision; the gentle felt pads of my finger tips, which never callous, ever soft enough to press upon a maiden's cheek. (Would I woo you, sweet ladies, would you not swoon?)

<<# % * @ - Need I demonstrate the confounding lightness of my step, so finely wrought the metal skin of my frame! I can trace the step of a minuet. So practical and economical, my little boiler belly digests diverse fuel - # % * @ - any kind of corporeal corruption tastes like kippers and tea to me. For the organic which originates in Original Sin must combust, in hellfire heat, whether kernels of coal, corn, or cottonwood - and aye! - even carnal. It is the principle of the worm, mechanically applied, so decorously by the Philadelphian Brethren of Mechanics, so domestically prestidigitatious, as modified by the good Creole old women of New Orleans. # % * @ - I can eat my fuel with fork and spoon, so civil am I. My jaws break down coal and such with ivory teeth. (Aye, it is true, ivory is quite hard, hard as hammers - although mine are screwed in with vise and pliers.) The black dust thus slips down my esopho-chute, directly down into the fiery furnace of my tummy tum-tum, thus broiling my little boiler into frenzy a-boil, thus driving the twin pistons of my lungs up and down, thus pressing irresistible mechanical force into the fine- toothed and supersubtle gears of my limbs, and thus, on the counter- stroke, the lifting piston expels the spent ash and smoke, through the efficient, discrete, and dare I say fashionable topper, as thus:>>

And from his stove pipe gushed greasy hot jets of roiling black, curling down around his benign face. The smoke rose up again slowly over the fort.

<<# % * @ - Merely I need a quart or so per diem to replenish my nearly absolutely efficient steam-circulation - let us say, upwards of ninety-six percent reclamation per cycle, as perfect as possible this side of Paradise.>>

"Hush, devil!" cried Mrs. Miles, stamping her foot. "I think your manufacture, so-called, diabolical design for blasphemy!" She picked up a stone.

"Do you think the likes of you could with impunity trespass on the image of Man, divine and glorious that image be, you soulless devil!" She reached back to throw the stone but Captain Miles gently stopped her.

He admonished mildly, "We must not abuse Federal property, Martha. It is a crime."

Old Sock came running with a second steaming toddy for Captain Seawell, who sipped it, eyeing the Prince-President with fond fraternity. Dispelled were his doubts that this stranger was monarchic machination. No, for this apparition was Yankee manufacture, good and proper, the apparatus of democracy. So in fraternal spirit he extended his paw, saying, "Well then, welcome to Fort Texas! We can always use a qualified surgeon. (The one we got now's only a sure bet for trimming `round the ears.)"

"I seem two Balers with tomcat ears from the surgeon's barbery trimming," said Sarah to me aside.

"What I want to know, Mr. Metal - I mean, Perfessor," Sarah called out, coming close with crossed arms, scrutinizing this metal man.

<< - Tick! - Prince-President," corrected the newcomer tirelessly, with his slight and unchanging rosy-cheeked smile.

" - If you is machine, as I guess I got to admit you is, `less'n my eyes be lyin', but I'll wager they ain't!" said Sarah, stopping to sniff the steamy ashen air. " - If you is an engine, how come you can walk and squawk so much fine and fancy talk?"

<<# % * @ - Is it so hard to imagine, dear lady,>> bowed the automaton, making me a little wary, although I can't quite say jealous, <<a machine that walks? We know locomotives can roll. My wheels are legs. More complex, but still a question of mechanics. If fact, the Veteran's Home of Philadelphia sells such spring-work artificial legs to replace those lost to fits of patriotic violence.>>

It was true - we all knew Marcus Smiley, the old vet, who peddled liquor to us back at camp Annex Agonies, hobbling around on his spring-work wooden leg.

"Yeah, sure, but!" Sarah grinned, perplexed. "I mean, then, how can you talk, and make sense (sorta), and act like such a fine gentleman in so many ways - I mean, how can you, a machine, I understand, have the freedom insides you to act like a man?"

<<Tick! - Aye? Tick! - Aye. Iron echo of man I am, have I no Ego? Is there Ego aught else but supernatural soul? Whence comes my freedom of movement - # % * @ - ?

While he ticked inside, as if his clock-works, like a Babbage Calculating Machine, belabored to resolve a complex logarithm, and the ladies traded whispers behind their hands, Old Sock and he seemed locked in mutual measure and reflection. Old Sock took out his hoodoo chicken bone and stroked its charm, frowning with concentration, then actually beginning to scowl with dislike -

P. P. F. S. stopped his tick-tick-ticking. He lifted an arm towards Old Sock and spoke:

<<Dear lady, are you sure we are free? Are not all of us slaves of our nature?>> As he spoke, he lost out attention, for, from the other direction, from the half-dug Bomb-Proof, from a dozen sunburnt sappers who had ceased their labor, came shouts of surprise, soon hushed by horror.

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