Every gear and bearing in this room was making the sort of sound that normally made Bob Shaftoe freeze like a startled animal. Even after he'd gotten it through his head that they were all clocks, or studies for clocks, he was hushed and intimidated by a sense of being surrounded by patient mechanical life. He stood at attention in the middle of the big room, hands in his pockets, blowing steam from his mouth and darting his eyes to and fro. These clocks were made to tell time precisely and nothing else. There were no bells, no chimes, and certainly no cuckoos. If Bob was waiting for such entertainments, he'd wait until he was a dusty skeleton surrounded by cobweb-clogged gears.