"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman

Why let them order you about? Why let them tell you to hurry and scurry like ants or maggots? Take your time! Saunter a while! Enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the breeze, let life carry you at your own pace! Don't be slaves of time, it's a helluva way to die, slowly, by degrees...down with the Ticktockman!

Jelly beans! Millions and billions of purples and yellows and greens and licorice and grape and raspberry and mint and round and smooth and crunchy outside and soft-mealy inside and sugary and bouncing jouncing tumbling clittering clattering skittering fell on the heads and shoulders and hardhats and carapaces of the Timkin works, tinkling on the slidewalk and bouncing away and rolling about underfoot and filling the sky on their way down with all the colors of joy and childhood and holidays, coming down in a steady rain, a solid wash, a torrent of color and sweetness out of the sky from above, and entering a universe of sanity and metronomic order with quite-mad coocoo newness. Jelly beans!

And so it goes. And so it goes. And so it goes. And so it goes goes goes goes goes tick tock tick tock tick tock and one day we no longer let time serve us, we serve time and we are slaves of the schedule, worshipers of the sun's passing, bound into a life predicated on restrictions because the system will not function if we don't keep the schedule tight.

Don't come back till you have him!" the Ticktockman said, very quietly, very sincerely, extremely dangerously. They used dogs. They used probes. They used cardioplate crossoffs. They used teepers. They used bribery. They used stiktytes. They used intimidation. They used torment. They used torture. They used finks. They used cops. They used search&seizure. They used fallaron. They used betterment incentive. They used fingerprints. They used the Bertillon system. They used cunning. They used guile. They used treachery. They used Raoul Mitgong, but he didn't help much. They used applied physics. They used techniques of criminology. And what the hell: they caught him.

You're a nonconformist.” “That didn’t used to be a felony.” “It is now. Live in the world around you.

Master Timekeeper: Not everyone thinks so. Most people enjoy order. Harlequin: I don't, and most of the people I know don't." Master Timekeeper: That's not true. How do you think we caught you? Harlequin: I'm not interested. Master Timekeeper: A girl named pretty Alice told us who you were. Harlequin: That's a lie. Master Timekeeper: It's true. You unnerve her. She wants to belong, she wants to conform, I'm going to turn you off.