One day Preisendanz had had the damaged, life-sized automaton writer delivered to the workshop, and August had carefully taken it apart in an effort to penetrate the secret of its construction. The external figure, a boy with curly locks, was stiff and crude in comparison with the delicate clockwork miniatures that August was constructing, but the internal clockwork was far more complex than any he had yet encountered. The boy sat before a small desk and held in one hand a quill pen. Before him on the desk was a piece of writing paper, and at the edge of the desk sat a small inkwell. Preisendanz, who had seen one like it in Paris, explained that the automaton was supposed to dip his pen into the inkstand, shake off a few drops of ink, and slowly and carefully copy onto the sheet of paper the words already written there. The automaton had left the proper spaces between words and, at the end of each word requiring it, had gone back to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. He could remember no other details. The piece of paper on the desk before the automaton boy bore the message, in English: “In the second century of the Christian era, the Empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind.”

August, while constructing miniatures for Preisendanz, labored over the life-sized boy writer for six months before discovering its secret: someone had removed three different sets of wheels, evidently with the intention of preventing anyone else from operating the automaton. After much experimentation August filled in the gaps, and called in Preisendanz to see the demonstration. Preisendanz was delighted, and wondered aloud whether they should start producing life-sized automatons. August, looking up in surprise, was shocked at this revelation of vulgarity. And once again he had the sensation that everything was uncertain, that things were bound to end badly.