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Record Fifteen

The Bell
The Mirror-like Sea
I Am to Burn Eternally

I was walking on the dock where the Integral is being built, when the Second Builder came to meet me. His face, as usual, was round and white, a porcelain plate. When he speaks it seems as if he serves you a plate of something unbearably tasty.

“You chose to be ill, and without the Chief we had sort of an accident yesterday.”

“An accident?”

“Yes, sir. We finished the bell and started to let it down, and imagine; the men caught a male without a number. How he got in I can't make out. They took him to the Operation Department. Oh, they'll get the answers out of the fellow there; ‘why’ and ‘how’ etc. . . .” He smiled delightedly.

Our best and most experienced physicians work in the Operation Department under the direct supervision of the Well-Doer himself. They have all kinds of instruments, but the best of all is the Gas Bell. The procedure is taken from an ancient experiment of elementary physics: they used to put a rat under a gas bell and gradually pump out the air; the air becomes more and more rarefied, and . . . you know the rest.

But our Gas Bell is certainly a more perfect apparatus,

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