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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Christopher and the Clockmakers, by Sara Ware
+Bassett, Illustrated by William F. Stecher
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Christopher and the Clockmakers
+
+
+Author: Sara Ware Bassett
+
+
+
+Release Date: October 9, 2008  [eBook #26857]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTOPHER AND THE CLOCKMAKERS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by La Monte H. P. Yarroll, Jacqueline Jeremy, and the
+Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+(https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
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+      See 26857-h.htm or 26857-h.zip:
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+      or
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+
+
+
+
+
+CHRISTOPHER AND THE CLOCKMAKERS
+
+    [Illustration: "Those men--one of them took a ring--I saw him."
+     FRONTISPIECE.      _See page_ 34.]
+
+
+CHRISTOPHER AND THE CLOCKMAKERS
+
+by
+
+SARA WARE BASSETT
+
+With Illustrations by William F. Stecher
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Boston
+Little, Brown, and Company
+1925
+
+Copyright, 1925,
+by Sara Ware Bassett.
+All rights reserved
+
+Published September, 1925
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+    TO THE MEMORY OF
+
+    RICHARD PARSONS, SIMON WILLARD AND JOHN BAILEY,
+
+    A TRIO OF CONSCIENTIOUS CRAFTSMEN, WHOSE HANDIWORK
+    STILL SURVIVES THEM TO CHEER MY HOME AND TESTIFY
+    DAILY TO THEIR FIDELITY AND SKILL.
+
+        S. W. B.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                                     PAGE
+
+        I A CLOUD WITH A SILVER LINING                           1
+
+       II CHRISTOPHER MAKES AN ACQUAINTANCE                     12
+
+      III CHRISTOPHER ESCAPES BEING A HERO                      31
+
+       IV AN ENCOUNTER WITH THE POLICE                          39
+
+        V CHRISTOPHER ASTONISHES HIMSELF                        49
+
+       VI CLOCKS THAT WERE GOOD AS PLAYS                        64
+
+      VII AN EXCURSION                                          81
+
+     VIII AN ADVENTURE                                         101
+
+       IX CHRISTOPHER RECOGNIZES AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE           112
+
+        X AN AMAZING ADVENTURE                                 125
+
+       XI THE SEQUEL TO THE LETTER                             137
+
+      XII CLOCK GIANTS                                         147
+
+     XIII CLOCKS ON LAND AND CLOCKS AT SEA                     162
+
+      XIV HOW RUBIES, SAPPHIRES, AND GARNETS HELPED
+              TO TELL TIME                                     176
+
+       XV CLOCKS IN AMERICA                                    187
+
+      XVI WHAT MASSACHUSETTS CONTRIBUTED                       202
+
+     XVII THE ROMANCE OF THE WATCH                             217
+
+    XVIII CHRISTOPHER HAS A BIRTHDAY                           236
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+    "THOSE MEN--ONE OF THEM TOOK A RING--I SAW HIM"    _Frontispiece_
+
+    "SO YOU NEVER SAW AN OLD FELLOW LIKE THIS, EH?"         _Page_ 24
+
+    WHAT WAS IT THAT RENDERED THE FIGURE SO FAMILIAR?           " 103
+
+    AH, WHAT AN EVENING THE TWO CRONIES HAD TOGETHER
+        THAT NIGHT                                              " 164
+
+
+
+
+CHRISTOPHER AND THE CLOCKMAKERS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A CLOUD WITH A SILVER LINING
+
+
+Christopher Mark Antony Burton was a tremendously imposing name to give
+a baby. When he lay in his crib, wee and helpless, he looked as if he
+might never survive the weight of it. Even later, when he began to
+toddle about on his small, unsteady feet, the sonorous pseudonym trailed
+in his wake, threatening to drag him down to an early grave.
+
+Nevertheless his father protested against the burden being lightened one
+iota. Christopher Mark Antony Burton he had been christened and
+Christopher Mark Antony Burton he must remain. Had it not been his
+father's, his grandfather's, and his great-grandfather's name before
+him; and all his life had not Mr. Burton longed for some one to whom to
+pass on the treasure of which he was so proud? And then on a happy day a
+son came upon the scene and _presto_, before the boy was an hour old,
+the ponderous appellation was clapped on his unlucky head.
+
+Mr. Burton, however, did not consider the child unlucky--not he! To
+bestow this signal honor afforded him infinite satisfaction. No gift he
+could have granted his heir could, in his opinion, equal--much less
+surpass--this one.
+
+He had, to be sure, on the day of the baby's birth, deposited in the
+savings bank five hundred dollars to its credit; but what was money when
+weighed against being Christopher Mark Antony Burton, the fourth?
+
+And Christopher had thrived despite the fact that life, no respecter of
+persons, did not spare him the misfortunes common to the race. He had
+whooping cough, measles, and mumps like other children, and when at
+length he reached the ripened age of six he was led to school and it was
+here, with one swift, leveling blow, that his splendor vanished even as
+the grass which in the morning groweth up and at night is cut down, and
+withereth.
+
+He issued forth from his home as Christopher Mark Antony Burton and
+returned to it shorn of his glories and as plain Chris Burton. Was ever
+transformation more complete? Certainly not in the estimation of his
+father and mother. But Chris himself was overjoyed at the emancipation.
+It seemed as if a ball had been lifted from his foot and left him free
+as air. And the wonderful part of it was that the operation had been so
+quickly and painlessly accomplished. It had taken a round-faced,
+red-haired urchin just about fifteen seconds to sever his bonds.
+
+"Christopher Mark Antony Burton!" jibed he with sardonic glee. "Haw,
+haw! Can you beat it? Cut it out, Chris."
+
+Whereupon a group of derisive youngsters had proceeded without further
+ado to cut it out.
+
+"Chris Burton! Chris Burton!" they piped, capering gleefully about their
+victim.
+
+Christopher's consent to this re-christening was not asked. The name
+would have been cut in the same ruthless fashion whether he willed it or
+not. Fortunately, however, he welcomed his release, and this cheerful
+conformity to public sentiment earned for him at the outset of his
+career vast popularity.
+
+"Chris is all right," conceded his judges. "Poor kid! Is it his fault if
+they pasted a mile-long label on him?"
+
+Indeed common opinion generally agreed that the unhappy victim of the
+Burton honors was far more sinned against than sinning, and his cause
+was forthwith taken up with zealous sympathy.
+
+"They didn't do a thing to you, you poor trout, when they wished that
+tag on you, did they?" Billie Earnshaw, the leader of the gang, declared
+not unkindly. "No matter, old chap! Cheer up! Forget it! We're going
+to."
+
+And they did. As completely as if the awful appellation had never
+existed it was wiped from the tablets of their memory and Christopher
+Mark Antony Burton fourth became Chris Burton--nothing more.
+
+Oh, there were days when the original horror bobbed up. It appeared on
+report cards and in school registers traced in the teacher's clear,
+painstaking hand: _Christopher Mark Antony Burton_; nevertheless she
+never troubled to address him in that fashion. Perhaps she hadn't the
+time. Life was a busy enterprise and the days were short. One could not
+stop to roll out a name like that unless blessed with leisure.
+Accordingly in the schoolroom our hero passed as Burton and on the
+ball-field as Chris, and since his existence alternated 'twixt these two
+worlds, he was Christopher Mark Antony Burton only at breakfast and at
+bed-time--intervals so brief that they were endured with cheerfulness
+and complacency.
+
+Therefore having rid himself thus early in his career of a stigma that
+threatened to blast his chance for success, the future stretched before
+him smooth as a macadam road. Uneventfully he finished the grammar
+school and went on into the high school as did other boys of his
+acquaintance. He was not, however, a scholar who leaped avidly toward
+books. Painfully, reluctantly he trudged his way. Learning came
+hard--especially Latin, French, and history. To hold fast a French verb
+was for him a thousand times harder than to grip in his clutch a
+writhing eel; and as for algebra--well, the unknown quantity was the
+only one he was sure of.
+
+Yet notwithstanding his scholastic limitations, he contrived to wriggle
+along until at the beginning of his junior year he was whisked away to
+the hospital with scarlet fever, after which, amid sage waggings of
+their heads, a group of doctors congregated about his bed. He was not to
+be alarmed, they said. His eyes were not permanently injured. Yet there
+was no denying his illness had seriously weakened them and they must be
+given a long vacation. Perhaps six months might do what was
+necessary--perhaps, on the other hand, it might take a year. Rest was
+the thing needed--absolute rest and protection from the light.
+Whereupon, having delivered themselves of this decree, they placed upon
+his nose a pair of blue goggles, told him to cheer up, and went their
+way.
+
+At first the tragedy on which they commiserated him did not appear to
+Christopher very great. He detested books. Now, without effort of his
+own, he was to be released from them. It was almost too good to be true.
+Had he begged the boon on bended knees, his parents would have denied
+it. And now, as if by magic, the favor he sought had been granted
+without so much as a word from them. The law had been laid down so
+forcefully that neither they nor he dared disobey it.
+
+In fact it was soon apparent they felt vastly sorry on Christopher's
+account that the mandate had been pronounced. Everybody did. Ill news
+travels as if on wings, and before the boy had been home a day the
+entire community was offering him sympathy for a calamity which did not
+seem to him any calamity at all.
+
+True, he detested his blue glasses and would gladly have consigned them
+to the ash barrel. Still no sky is without shadows; one must take the
+cake as well as the frosting. Certainly he found it no cross to rise in
+leisurely fashion while the other kids were hiking along to school and
+sit down to a hot breakfast cooked especially for him; nor, when the
+bells were just about ringing for recitations, could it be considered a
+hardship to saunter off for a tramp in the sunshine, with Joffre, his
+tireless collie, bounding on before him.
+
+No, his lot was far from an unhappy one. For a week or two he was
+entirely content. Of course there was no denying there were moments that
+dragged. He couldn't read, and he had always derived keen delight from a
+good pirate story. However, people read to him, and that was the next
+best thing. Often his father or his mother would toss aside their books
+or papers and read aloud to him an entire evening. But the books they
+selected were never pirate stories. Instead they were almost always
+things that aimed to improve him, and if there was anything Christopher
+resented, it was being improved. Therefore while he appreciated the good
+intentions of his parents in reading and explaining to him Emerson's
+essays, he would as lief have exchanged all of them for a single chapter
+of "Treasure Island." But, alas, his father was not of the "Treasure
+Island" sort, and neither was his mother. Indeed it is doubtful whether
+they would have recognized Silver had they met him in broad daylight, on
+the main street. As for himself he missed Silver sadly--Silver,
+Deerslayer, and all the rest of his cronies, and before long time began
+to hang heavily on his hands.
+
+Elversham was, it is true, a beautiful suburb in which to live. Still,
+there wasn't much doing in it. If your day was not filled with school,
+baseball, football, or building a radio, how was a chap to fill up his
+time? He could, of course, go down to the athletic field and watch the
+games, but as he was accustomed to being in the thick of them, he
+derived no great pleasure from sitting about on the edges and looking
+on, while others fumbled the ball or failed to make a touchdown. What a
+pity it was that when he had dropped out of school he had been obliged
+to sacrifice his position on the team! Still how could any one be mixed
+up in a football tackle if he had to wear blue glasses every minute?
+
+No, for the present he must certainly keep out of athletics. He was, in
+fact, pretty well out of everything. When he joined the fellows, it was
+only to hear them joshing about some event wholly unintelligible to him.
+All their jokes and horse play led back to the classroom until at length
+he felt as if he might as well have listened to a lot of jibbering
+Chinese as to try to understand their nonsense.
+
+Yes, he was out of it--completely out of it! Gradually the realization
+dawned on him. He was out of everything, the only idle person in a
+rushing world. When he took a walk, except for the companionship of
+Joffre, he went alone. Everybody was too busy to pay any attention to
+him. He was bored with his own society--horribly bored.
+
+"Isn't there anything I can do, Dad?" he desperately inquired one
+evening, after his mother had all but read him to sleep with the life of
+Benjamin Franklin.
+
+"What do you mean, son?" asked Mr. Burton, dropping his paper and
+emerging abruptly from Wall Street, his attention arrested more by the
+lad's tone than by his words.
+
+"I mean isn't there anything at all I can do? I'm sick to death of
+loafing round this house."
+
+"But I thought you were rather pleased to be out of school," Mr. Burton
+asserted with surprise.
+
+"I was at first--pleased as Punch; but I'm not now. I'm bored within an
+inch of my life. I can't keep tramping round with Joffre from morning to
+night, nor is there anywhere to go if I could. Besides, I haven't a soul
+to speak to--everybody is studying or else playing football."
+
+"It is hard, Christopher," agreed his mother with instant sympathy. "You
+have been very patient."
+
+"So you have, my boy! So you have!" Mr. Burton echoed. "I had no idea,
+however, that you were unhappy. Well, well! We must see what can be
+done."
+
+He rose and began to pace the floor thoughtfully.
+
+"Now if I could afford it," he went on, "I should pack you off on a trip
+round the world. That would not only amuse you royally but afford you a
+liberal education into the bargain; but I haven't the money to do that
+just now, I'm afraid. Some more modest entertainment must be found. H-m!
+I don't suppose as a makeshift you would care to go into the store with
+me for a week or two until a better plan can be devised."
+
+The lad's face instantly brightened.
+
+"Yes, I would," he cried. "I'd like it very much." Although the scheme
+was not a brilliant one, it was far better than hanging about Elversham
+day after day. To go to the city would mean new sights, new sounds, and
+doubtless luncheon with his father--a treat to which he had always
+looked forward since a small boy.
+
+"Really now!" commented Mr. Burton, beaming down at him. "Well, I am
+surprised. I feared you would not even listen to the proposal. So you
+like it, eh? Oh, not for long, of course--I understand that; but simply
+as a filler."
+
+Christopher was all cordiality.
+
+"It wouldn't be half bad."
+
+"Don't imagine I shall set you to work," continued Mr. Burton hastily.
+
+"I'd rather work if there was anything I could do."
+
+"I am afraid there wouldn't be," was the reply. "Ours is a trade that
+has, for the most part, to be learned."
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"No, I shall not set you to work--or entertain you, either. You will
+have to look out for yourself. However, as you say, it may amuse you to
+go to the store, and perhaps when you get there you can make some sort
+of a niche for yourself. We'll see."
+
+"Certainly there must be errands to run," Christopher suggested.
+
+Mr. Burton eyed the boy pleasantly, but shook his head.
+
+"Even our errands have to be detailed to skilled men--at least, most of
+them. Now and then, it is true, there are ordinary messages to be
+delivered; but in most cases any packages we send out are too valuable
+to be entrusted to boys your age. They might be held up."
+
+"Held up!" repeated Christopher incredulously.
+
+"Surely. Such things have happened," Mr. Burton nodded. "We never feel
+safe about sending out valuable goods unless they are well guarded."
+
+"It would be mighty exciting to be held up!" Christopher gasped, his
+eyes wide with interest.
+
+"Exciting!" mimicked his father sarcastically. "Exciting! Humph! I guess
+you would find it something more than exciting if a group of yeggs
+thrust a pistol under your nose. You seem to forget that persons who
+hold up a messenger do it to get the goods."
+
+"But they don't always succeed?" came breathlessly from Christopher.
+
+"Not in moving pictures," was the grim retort. "In the movies, somebody
+always happens along at the crucial moment, rescues the hero, captures
+the villain, and everything is all right. That is the sort of hold-up
+you are accustomed to, son. But in real life the villain is a desperate
+character armed with a gun that goes off. You forget that."
+
+Christopher looked crestfallen and flushed uncomfortably.
+
+"Perhaps I am shaking your courage a little and you won't be so eager to
+go to town with me," jested Mr. Burton.
+
+"On the contrary, the scheme appeals to me more than ever."
+
+"You actually hanker to meet a bandit or two?"
+
+"It would certainly add a thrill to life to encounter a bandit," grinned
+Christopher.
+
+"Add a thrill!" Mr. Button sniffed. "Add a thrill! Well, I will tell you
+right now that when you feel a desire for a thrill like that coming on,
+you can go straight to the movies and indulge it. You shall have no such
+thrills at _my_ expense," and without more ado Christopher Mark Antony
+Burton, senior, lighted a fresh cigar, took up his paper, and dismissed
+the matter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHRISTOPHER MAKES AN ACQUAINTANCE
+
+
+The jewelry house of Burton and Norcross occupied four stories of a
+corner fronting two busy city streets and before its gem-filled windows
+a group of passers-by were continually standing.
+
+On cushions of velvet lay an alluring display of rings, broaches,
+necklaces, and costly frivolities of every description while on other
+cushions ticked watches varying from toy affairs on ribbons to more
+serious-intentioned and dignified repeaters.
+
+All day and indeed all night, for that matter, a white light beat down
+upon this flashing outlay, and before it envious spectators flattened
+their noses against the massive plate glass and dreamed idle dreams of
+possession.
+
+"Say, Jim, ain't that red stone with the diamonds round it a peach? Gee,
+but I'd like a thing like that on my finger! How much do you s'pose
+you'd have to pay for it?"
+
+"A cool hundred, likely."
+
+"Go on!"
+
+"Sure you would. Them red stones are rubies and they cost like the
+dickens. I ain't sure you wouldn't have to pay mor'n a hundred for that
+ring."
+
+"Humph! I see myself doin' it!"
+
+"So do I!"
+
+"Well, you needn't rub it in. Anyhow, even if I had the price, I'd
+rather spend it on a Ford."
+
+"What's the matter with havin' 'em both? You're full as likely to have
+one as the other; come on. What's the good of standin' here lettin' your
+mouth water over things there's no hope of your gettin'? Let's call it
+off an' go to a picture show."
+
+A moment later another pair would saunter up and stop.
+
+"Oh, Mame, look at that diamond necklace! Isn't it wonderful! Do you
+s'pose it's real?"
+
+"Real! You bet your life it's real! You won't catch Burton and Norcross
+putting fake diamonds in their window. Come along, for heaven's sake;
+I'm starving and want my lunch. It's no use to hang round here staring
+in."
+
+"I can look, can't I?"
+
+"If you want to, yes. Lookin's a cheap entertainment. You're silly to do
+it though. It'll only get you out of sorts."
+
+So babbled the crowd.
+
+A listener might have amused himself the whole day long enjoying the
+comments of the throng had he nothing better to do than loiter near by.
+Unfortunately, however, the corner did not foster extended loitering. It
+was far too busy a spot. About it swirled and surged an eddy of
+shoppers, all hurrying this way and that and jostling one another so
+mercilessly that he who did not make one of the current and move with
+the stream was all but exterminated. Like a tidal wave, the ruthless
+concourse swept past, bearing with it everything that obstructed its
+path. You went whether you would or no, and afterward you stepped into a
+doorway, caught your breath, straightened your hat, and tried to
+remember what it was you had intended to do.
+
+By contrast the interior of Burton and Norcross was painfully still. The
+moment a visitor crossed its threshold he realized that. As if he had
+left behind him a stormy sea and now come into quiet waters, he stood
+amid its hush, conscious of his every footfall and the very intonations
+of his voice. Instinctively he immediately pitched his tones lower and
+drew himself to his full height when he traversed the marble floor that
+separated the bordering show cases.
+
+Individuals counted for more here than they did outside--far more. A
+person who came into Burton and Norcross sensed whether his tie was awry
+or his shoes unshined, and so did everybody else. For if you entered the
+shop at all, you entered it deliberately. No one ever strolled or
+sauntered into Burton and Norcross. It wasn't that sort of place. You
+would no more have ambled aimlessly along its center aisle, frankly
+proclaiming to all the world your opinion of what it had to sell, than
+you would casually have invaded the Court of St. James or Windsor
+Castle. Ambling was not done there. Nobody ambled. Even Mr. Burton
+himself didn't. Although he was the senior partner and could have
+claimed the privilege of ambling had he chosen, the shop transformed him
+just as it did everybody else. Once within its portals he became more
+erect, more commanding--in fact, a different human being
+altogether--and proceeded to announce right and left in accents never
+employed by him anywhere else that it was a beautiful day.
+
+On this particular morning Christopher, who tagged meekly at his heels,
+fervently subscribed to the sentiment he advanced. It was a beautiful
+day. Almost any day, so new in the adventure of setting forth for a peep
+into the business world, would have seemed beautiful. And yet there was
+really nothing very novel in going to the store, for since a small boy
+he had been accustomed to being taken there to meet his father.
+
+Sometimes such excursions culminated in new shoes or a new overcoat;
+sometimes in a pair of skates or in luncheon; and on a very red-letter
+day, such as a birthday or anniversary of some sort, in a matinee or
+moving-picture show.
+
+Therefore Christopher was no stranger either to the plush-lined cases
+and their sparkling contents or to the men who presided over them.
+Everybody knew him by sight--doormen, salesmen, elevator boys,
+watchmakers, bookkeepers, and messengers. He was the son of the boss,
+Christopher Mark Antony Burton, fourth.
+
+There were, alas, times when Christopher wished from the bottom of his
+heart he had been less well known. To be regarded as the future heir to
+all this splendor kept those he met in the establishment painfully
+deferential and created an estranging gulf 'twixt him and all that was
+human and interesting.
+
+If, for example, when he bobbed unexpectedly into the elevator, old
+Joseph, its colored operator, had only kept right on munching an apple
+instead of whisking it out of sight into his pocket, how much pleasanter
+it would have been! Then, too, the men all insisted on calling him
+_sir_, which embarrassed him and made him feel very young and foolish.
+He had never desired to be a person of privilege for in spite of his
+sonorous name, Christopher was very democratic.
+
+Probably if left to himself he would within twenty-four hours have been
+on the friendliest of terms with everybody in the shop. But in the
+background loomed his father of whom every employee stood in awe, and
+whose imposing presence they never forgot for one instant. You did not
+forget Mr. Christopher Mark Antony Burton, third, senior partner of the
+firm; he did not let you.
+
+It was for this reason that Christopher the fourth made his advent into
+the great shop with less joy and abandon than he would have done had
+conditions been otherwise. He was politely welcomed but not cordially.
+That would not have been fitting.
+
+"Now what will you do to amuse yourself, son?" inquired Mr. Burton,
+after Tim had bowed them in the front door and called the elevator. "You
+are to please yourself. I shall be too busy to give a thought to you."
+
+"Oh, I don't expect to be entertained," returned Christopher brightly.
+"Don't have me on your mind at all. I'll look after myself."
+
+"That's right! That's right!" exclaimed his father, as if relieved by
+the intelligence. "You are welcome to go anywhere you like. Everybody
+knows you by sight and understands you are to be around here for a
+while. Just don't get into mischief. And see you are ready promptly at
+one to go to luncheon with me."
+
+"You can count on me for that!"
+
+"I'll wager I can."
+
+With these words Mr. Burton opened the door of his office and
+disappeared.
+
+Christopher hung up his hat and coat and hesitated uncertainly for a
+moment. He did not really know what he wanted to do. A general
+atmosphere of business of which he became instantly aware made him feel
+like an intruder. The men greeted him, it is true, but with minds
+focused far less on the salutation than on the various missions that
+drove them hither and thither.
+
+There was something almost ludicrous about the seriousness with which
+they took this matter of rings and necklaces. One would have thought the
+affairs of a nation occupied them, so anxious and hurried were they.
+
+He sauntered along the balcony in the wake of a red-cheeked young clerk
+who had bowed to him pleasantly and looked less as if he were speeding
+to save a burning ship or warn the king he was about to be blown up than
+did some of the others; and when this guide turned into a long,
+brilliantly lighted room, Christopher, having nothing better to do,
+entered too.
+
+"You haven't finished that bracket clock yet, have you, McPhearson?"
+called the salesman, approaching a little old man who with a microscope
+to one eye was bending over a bench littered with small steel tools.
+
+"Not yet, Bailey," the clockmaker replied without, however, looking up.
+"She's a queer piece, that clock--not one for ordinary treatment."
+
+"But you can put her in shape, can't you?" came a bit anxiously from
+Bailey.
+
+At the words a slow smile puckered the Scotchman's lips and for the
+first time he stole a glance at the speaker.
+
+"Don't fret, Bailey," he drawled.
+
+"I'm not fretting, Mr. McPhearson. But the woman who owns that clock
+won't sleep nights until she gets it home again."
+
+"I don't blame her," was all McPhearson said.
+
+"It's a good one, eh?"
+
+"It's a dandy. I'd give my head for one like it. Genuine from start to
+finish and listed in the book. It was made by Richard Parsons of Number
+15 Goswell Street, London, somewhere about 1720--at least he is down as
+a member of the Clockmakers' Company right along then. Pity he can't
+know his handiwork is still doing duty. He'd be proud of it. Two hundred
+years or more isn't a bad record for a clock."
+
+"Two hundred years!" gasped Christopher involuntarily.
+
+McPhearson peeped up over his microscope.
+
+"This is Mr. Burton's son, McPhearson," put in Bailey.
+
+"I know, I know. I've seen him round here ever since he could toddle.
+Good morning, youngster. So you've come to explore the repairing
+department, have you?"
+
+The informality of the greeting was delightful to Christopher, and
+immediately his heart went out to the old Scotchman.
+
+"I guess so, yes," smiled he. "I didn't know I was going to though. It
+just happened."
+
+"It's not a bad happen, perhaps. Make yourself at home, laddie. Here's a
+stool."
+
+"I'd rather stand and watch you."
+
+"But I sha'n't let you. It makes me nervous to have somebody hanging
+over my shoulder and maybe jogging my elbow. If you're to stay you must
+sit," was the brusque but not unkindly answer.
+
+Somewhat crestfallen the boy slipped to the stool and for a few moments
+remained immovable, watching the workman's busy fingers. How carefully
+they moved--with what fascinating deftness and rapidity!
+
+"I see you are not one to keep hitching and twiddling around," the
+clockmaker presently remarked, with a twinkle. "We shall get on famously
+together. I detest nervous people."
+
+"Are you fixing the clock Mr. Bailey was asking about?" Christopher
+ventured.
+
+"Not just now, sonny. I am finishing up a simpler job. I shall go back
+to her in a minute, however. You can't just tinker her at will as you do
+common clocks. She has to be dreamed over."
+
+"Dreamed over!" repeated Christopher, not a little puzzled.
+
+"Aye, dreamed over! Well-nigh prayed over--if it comes to that,"
+continued the old man gravely. "She isn't the sort that was turned out
+in a factory, you see, along with hundreds of others of her kind. She's
+an aristocrat and must be treated accordingly."
+
+"Do you mean it--_she_--was made by hand?"
+
+"Every wheel and rivet of her!"
+
+"But I thought the works of all clocks were alike," asserted
+Christopher.
+
+"Bless your heart, no. Nowadays most of them are; and there are
+advantages in it too, for when a part gives out, you can easily get
+another to replace it. But years ago in the days of the clockmakers'
+guilds, clocks were made by hand and were frequently entirely the work
+of one man--except perhaps the case, which was sometimes made by a
+joiner."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"This old bracket clock, for instance, that I was speaking of--a fellow
+named Richard Parsons, who belonged to the London Clockmakers' Company
+between 1690 and 1730, made her from start to finish. You will see his
+name painted on the dial, and engraved on the works is his address. The
+jealous old clockmakers kept their eye on those who were manufacturing
+clocks, I can tell you. They weren't going to have a lot of cheap,
+poorly made articles shunted off on the public to ruin their trade. No,
+indeed. A man must serve a long apprenticeship before he could be
+admitted to the Clockmakers' Company and once enrolled must put his
+address in all his clocks so everybody would know he had a right to make
+and sell them."
+
+"It wasn't a bad idea."
+
+"Not at all bad. Nevertheless, the clockmakers were a stern, tyrannical
+lot. Nobody within twenty miles of London was allowed to make a clock
+unless enrolled in their organization. Moreover, they got from the king
+a right of search which enabled them to go in and seize any goods which
+they suspected fell below the standard. Not only did they want to be
+sure no poor clocks were made but they also wished to keep the monopoly
+of all the timepieces turned out.
+
+"For example, when war in France drove many of the French artisans to
+England, up rose the London clockmakers to protest against any of the
+French makers practicing their craft within their domains. Fortunately
+the petition was denied and at length these skilled workmen were
+enrolled in the company and together with their descendants gave to
+England some of her most beautiful clocks. But the old guild members did
+not suffer it without a wrench, I can tell you."
+
+McPhearson took up a small screwdriver and proceeded to fasten the back
+on to the clock he held in his hand.
+
+"It wasn't all smooth sailing, being a clockmaker in those days," he
+declared. "What wonder the horologers were jealous of their art? Just
+remember there were no factories to produce for you the screws, rivets,
+wheels, and parts you needed. You yourself had to make everything with
+the scant supply of tools at your command, usually a file, drill, and
+hammer. With these you hammered out your brass wheels to the required
+thickness, notched the teeth in their edges with the file, and fitted
+them into place. And when you consider that with this crude equipment
+you were expected to turn out a mechanism delicate enough to tell time,
+I am sure you will agree the stern old clockmakers had something on
+their side."
+
+"They sure had!" Christopher exclaimed with enthusiasm.
+
+"It is a glory to this Richard Parsons' skill that two hundred years
+after he made his clock it is still accurately performing its task. If
+anything I made was in existence at the end of a like stretch of time
+and was continuing to be useful, I should feel I had a right to be
+proud, shouldn't you?"
+
+"You bet I would. Nothing I make ever stays together more than a week."
+
+The Scotchman laughed at the boyish confession.
+
+"Now you can understand, I guess, why I sent Bailey away, telling him I
+should have to dream over this bracket clock. Two hundred years is a
+long time and methods have changed greatly since then. Therefore in
+order to repair such a product, I shall have to think myself back into
+the year 1700 and work in the fashion Richard Parsons did; otherwise I
+cannot successfully take up his handiwork. A clockmaker has to have
+imagination, you see."
+
+"I never thought of that."
+
+"It is such puzzles as these that make my trade interesting," McPhearson
+observed. "If every clock that came to me was of precisely the same
+pattern as every other, the work I do would be monotonous enough. But
+it is because clocks are as different as people that they pique my
+curiosity. Even those turned out in factories, for example, are never
+twice alike."
+
+"I should think those would _have_ to be alike," Christopher responded.
+
+"You'd think so, and so would I if I had not handled so many and learned
+otherwise. No, every clock has its personality, its little tricks. One
+doesn't like a cold room, perhaps, and as a protest will stop or lose
+time; another shows its disapproval of the heat by being ten minutes
+fast. Still another balks at an incline in the mantelpiece, so slight
+that nobody can see it, and will not tick even. So it goes. And it is
+not always the most expensive clocks and watches, either, that keep the
+best time, for sometimes a cheap affair will, for reasons not to be
+fathomed, put to shame your costly one. Not infrequently I take to
+pieces a fine clock or watch and fail to find anything the matter with
+it, and yet it will not go as it should. The creatures actually seem to
+be stubborn and take notions just as people do."
+
+"I'd no idea clocks were like that," mused Christopher.
+
+"That's because you haven't lived with them more than half a century as
+I have," the old man returned in friendly fashion. "I've summered and
+wintered them, you see, for fifty years and know their tricks and their
+manners. But this clock of Richard Parsons has no such caprices. It is a
+fine, sensible clock that goes faithfully about its business unless
+hindered by the lack of a rivet or a drop of oil. Just now its chimes
+are bothering; but we'll have them right after a little."
+
+"Has it chimes?"
+
+"Aye, surely. It has eight bells, though it is a small clock for the
+table or mantelpiece. The people of 1700 loved music and so did the
+clockmakers. Therefore clocks like this, that would play a different
+tune every day of the week, were in great demand. Maybe you never
+happened to see an old bracket clock of the long ago."
+
+"No, I never did." Christopher shook his head.
+
+"I'll go and fetch it. To tell you the truth, I put it away so it
+shouldn't be a temptation to me. Otherwise I'd be fussing with it and
+letting commonplace things such as this go."
+
+McPhearson rose and shuffled away, only to return a few moments later
+carrying the bracket clock by its brass handle.
+
+"So you never saw an old fellow like this, eh?" inquired he with evident
+satisfaction.
+
+"No. I certainly never saw a clock with a brass handle on top to carry
+it by," confessed Christopher.
+
+"And what do you say to its glass back and its beautifully chased
+works?" McPhearson turned his treasure round. "It was made to set on a
+table you see, or before the mirror that hung above the fireplace, in
+either of which spots the back of it would show almost as much as the
+front. Therefore its works were engraved, that one side should be quite
+as pleasing as the other."
+
+"It's a beauty, isn't it?"
+
+    [Illustration: "So you never saw an old fellow like this, eh?"
+     _Page_ 24.]
+
+"Well, you won't see many like it," the Scotchman asserted proudly. "Not
+but what a good number of them were turned out in England between 1670
+and 1750. But that was a long while ago, and things get scattered and
+are crowded out by newer fashions; besides, antique clocks are not
+always cared for and kept running. Then, too, it isn't always possible
+to find people who understand repairing such old fellows," McPhearson
+explained modestly. "As I said, they have to be taken as special cases
+and no end of thought put into them. More clocks are ruined by ignorant
+doctoring than by anything else. This one, thank goodness, has evidently
+always had intelligent care; if it hadn't it would not be ticking now."
+
+Gently the man put his burden on the workbench.
+
+It was a square clock with arched top and brass feet; and its face,
+suggesting that of a grandfather clock, was quaintly decorated with
+garlands of red roses. It had beautifully pierced hands, small brass
+cherub's heads at the corners, and at the top a single small hand
+pointed to its musical repertoire which consisted of: cotillion, jig,
+minuet, song, air, dance, and hymn.
+
+"You can take your choice of tunes, you see," explained McPhearson.
+"There is one for every day of the week. All you have to do is to shift
+the indicator round to what your want to hear. It chimes every three
+hours--at six, nine, twelve, and three o'clock, and just before the
+music begins, it strikes one to indicate the hour."
+
+"I wish I could hear it play."
+
+"You shall by and by. And you may select the tune if you like. It has a
+pretty tone, something like that of a music box; and the selections are
+pretty, too--old-fashioned airs that were familiar to the people of that
+day and are now curious and interesting. I want you to notice the brass
+spandrels while you are about it, for it is those that do much in
+helping us determine the dates when old clocks were made."
+
+"I'm afraid I don't know what a spandrel is," Christopher announced with
+appealing frankness.
+
+"And what marvel? How should you?" his companion replied pleasantly.
+"You have been such a good listener that I was forgetting you had not
+been brought up among clocks as I have been. Well, a spandrel is the
+small brass ornament at the corner that fills in the triangular gap left
+between the circular face and the square outline of the case. Some
+clocks have four of these, others such as this one only two. These
+ornaments were roughly cast in brass and afterward more carefully
+lacquered and finished by the clockmaker himself. Sometimes, however, we
+find them crudely executed as if they had been taken direct from the
+mold. Clockmakers of that time were not so inventive as we; neither had
+they had training in design, and as a result we see little variety in
+these brass ornamentations. At one period all these spandrels took the
+form of cherub's heads, an idea that may possibly have been copied from
+the Italians. Later a pattern with two cherubs supporting a crown was
+popular; and at a still later date the head of the cherub set in a
+scroll is found. That is the pattern on this one. The brass basketwork
+across the top is a relic of the old bird-cage clock which just
+preceded this one, and was cast by the metalsmith and then purchased by
+the clockmaker as were the spandrels.
+
+"Since we know the approximate date that such metal work was done and
+have in addition Richard Parsons' name listed among the London
+Clockmakers' Company together with his address, there is pretty positive
+evidence that this antique is genuine."
+
+"Was a list of all the London clockmakers kept?" questioned Christopher
+incredulously.
+
+"Of those who belonged to the Clockmakers' Company, yes; but there were
+many excellent makers who lived in the country and therefore did not
+belong to this guild. Those who were members were, you may be moderately
+certain, fine workmen. For that matter you may rest assured that any old
+clock of early make which is still doing duty is a good clock; it would
+not be going now if it weren't."
+
+"Of course. But Richard Parsons was really in the list, was he?"
+
+"He was; his name, address, date of apprenticeship and the name of the
+maker to whom he was apprenticed; also the dates when he was admitted to
+the most worshipful Clockmakers' Company. So you see, although he lived
+long ago, Richard Parsons is no stranger to us."
+
+"It makes you feel different when you know who he was, doesn't it?"
+commented Christopher slowly.
+
+"Yes, and his work helps us to know a good deal about him too, for no
+lazy, careless person turned out such a clock as this. We must
+nevertheless take into consideration that in 1700 men had the leisure
+for careful handiwork. Nobody was in a hurry in those days. Richard
+Parsons, in his shop at Number 15 Goswell Street, had all the time in
+the world to make his clock, and could fuss about and experiment to his
+heart's content. Probably no one ever thought of jogging him on or
+pestering him to know if his work wasn't done."
+
+Ruefully McPhearson shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Now I couldn't make a clock even were I so minded," he continued with a
+whimsical smile. "Mr. Bailey and a score of others as anxious as he
+would be prancing in here every half-hour to find out when it would be
+finished. They would expect it to be made, wound up, and ticking, inside
+a week. It was not so in the days of Queen Anne." The Scotchman sighed,
+then added, "Sometimes I envy them their leisure."
+
+Once more he turned the clock round so Christopher could see its
+old-fashioned face gay with dainty vines and flowers.
+
+"I declare if it isn't almost twelve o'clock," ejaculated he. "It's only
+three minutes behind schedule to-day. Still we must get it down finer
+than that. Besides, I'd rather it gained than lost time; losing is a
+grievous fault. Now what selection shall we play? Choose quickly for
+there isn't much leeway--"
+
+"I'll have the dance."
+
+"On with the dance!" McPhearson exclaimed gayly.
+
+Opening the door at the front he moved the single hand until it pointed
+to the air desired. And he was none too soon, for an instant later the
+clock struck the hour and then, after a short pause, Christopher heard
+the tinkle of bells, thin, clear, and sweet, beginning to play a quaint
+snatch of melody. It was not at all the sort of dance music the boy had
+expected. Instead it was a merry little tune so gay one could not but be
+glad that noontide had come and that the sun rode high in the heavens.
+
+"Jove, but that's jolly!" cried Christopher with delight. "I wish it
+would play right over again. If I had a clock like that I should run to
+listen to it every time it struck."
+
+"That is what our men here did at first," laughed McPhearson. "They all
+threw down their tools and rushed here like a pack of children."
+
+"Couldn't anybody buy one of these clocks?"
+
+"I'm afraid were you to try to, you would find it would cost a small
+fortune," answered the Scotchman. "Once you could have secured such an
+article at a very modest price; but values increase with time, and
+to-day the work of Richard Parsons and those like him is at a premium.
+Moreover, old bracket clocks are not often for sale. Those who own them
+are aware of their value and will not part with them."
+
+"Then I guess all I can do is to listen to this one," sighed
+Christopher.
+
+"That is all I can do myself," McPhearson declared, with a wan smile. "I
+should consider I had a fortune could I own a treasure like this. But
+at least if I cannot own it, I can have the fun of keeping it running
+and there is some satisfaction in that."
+
+"I should think there'd be a lot!" cried Christopher.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CHRISTOPHER ESCAPES BEING A HERO
+
+
+Leaving the repairing department, Christopher strolled to the edge of
+the balcony and idly looked down. Below all was bustle and brilliancy.
+Brass, copper, silver, and jewels flashed in the light of the galleries
+beneath him, which despite the fact that Thanksgiving was barely over,
+were already astir with the vanguard of Christmas shoppers. Far down on
+the main door he could see men and women in eager consultation over
+Colonial silver, Sheffield trays, gay-colored feather fans and
+multi-hued parasols.
+
+For quite an interval he watched, deriving no small degree of amusement
+from the uncertainty, anxiety, animated gestures and helpless
+bewilderment of some of the less inspired of the visitors; then,
+wearying of this entertainment, he descended by the stairway to the
+third and afterward to the second gallery, where he again paused to lean
+over the carved rail and obtain a closer view of the panorama.
+
+It chanced that just beneath him was a long showcase filled with gems
+before which two gentlemen in fur coats were standing, earnestly
+conversing with the salesman. On the counter lay a tray of rings and
+these one of the men was trying on and examining. It was plain from the
+clerk's eager manner that his prospective purchaser was wavering
+between two costly articles, neither one of which quite suited him. With
+desperate earnestness the salesman pleaded, cajoled, and argued, and
+unconsciously Christopher, looking down, became almost as interested as
+he to see what would come of the matter.
+
+The taller man slipped a band of diamonds on his finger, turned it
+round, held the hand it graced at arm's length, then frowned, took off
+the ring, and tried the other.
+
+Meantime his friend was called on for his opinion and advised
+sympathetically. Christopher pursed his lips scornfully. The two were
+like a pair of vain old peacocks and silly as women, thought he. How
+foolish for men to be wearing jewels, anyway. You wouldn't catch him
+arrayed in a big diamond ring. And the strangest part of it was that the
+man who was thus frittering away his money did not look at all like a
+fop but was tall, muscular, and had a scar, not unlike a sword cut,
+across his right cheek. It was a strange mark that ran from his ear
+almost to the corner of his mouth, and it gave his face a disagreeable,
+sinister expression.
+
+His comrade was less robust--a small, wiry fellow, who seemed lost in
+the heavy coat he wore. In spite of the heat of the room, he had not
+turned down his collar, which all but concealed his face, and once
+Christopher noticed that he leaned surreptitiously forward and drew that
+of his companion higher about his ears. Thus they dallied, laughing,
+joking, objecting, until the distracted clerk, fearful lest he lose
+such promising customers, was well-nigh out of his wits. It seemed as if
+they never would be suited, and at last, suddenly inspired, the salesman
+dashed off to the farther end of the show case in evident search for
+something he had forgotten to show them.
+
+It was during the instant he was thus occupied that Christopher saw, or
+thought he saw, the taller of the men wrench the ring he was wearing
+from his finger, drop it inside his glove, and substitute for it one his
+companion handed him. The exchange--if exchange it was--took place in a
+flash and was over so quickly the boy could scarcely believe his eyes. A
+second later the clerk returned triumphantly, displayed another ring,
+and renewed his attentions without noticing anything amiss. But his
+purchasers shook their heads, pushed the rings aside, and moved away.
+
+Then, and not until then, was Christopher urged to action. He awakened
+as out of a dream, wondering whether what he had witnessed was real, and
+if it was, what he ought to do. The two fur-coated gentlemen were almost
+at the door. If he was to do anything at all, it must be now.
+Fortunately a stairway was at no great distance; and he raced down it as
+fast as his feet would carry him. When he reached the street floor, the
+door had, alas, closed on the suspected thieves. It came to him now how
+much wiser it would have been had he shouted from the balcony, instead
+of waiting to descend. If he had done that the men might have been
+stopped before they got away. But it was all so unbelievable that he
+hadn't the nerve to cry out. Had he been mistaken, a pretty sort of
+fool he would have appeared; besides, he had not thought of it. His
+bright ideas always seemed to come afterward.
+
+Well, at any rate he was alert enough now. It took him no time to rush
+up to the perspiring clerk, who, discouraged, stood mopping his brow,
+and gasp:
+
+"Those men--one of them took a ring--I saw him."
+
+"_What!_"
+
+"He did. He put it in his glove."
+
+"But the rings are all here."
+
+"It was another one," panted Christopher. "His friend slipped it to him
+and he--"
+
+The salesman paled. Breathlessly he dragged out the tray of rings and
+pounced upon one of them.
+
+"My soul!" he faltered weakly. "You're right. It's a fake. There's no
+mark on it. Ring, Grant! Ring that bell for the detective. The
+'phone--quick--and call headquarters! We'll put somebody on their track
+as fast as ever we can." Then, turning to Christopher, he shouted
+accusingly, "Why in the deuce didn't you sing out before they got away?
+And where were you, anyhow, that you saw the affair?"
+
+While the other clerks at the counter gathered round Christopher, he
+related exactly what he had witnessed.
+
+"You'd know the chaps again?"
+
+"I'd know the big one--I'm sure I should, because of the scar on his
+cheek."
+
+"Scar? I didn't notice it," murmured the unhappy salesman. "I was too
+busy listening to their blarney, I guess. They meant I should be,
+too--idiot that I was. I can't see why you didn't sing out, kid." The
+clerk, thoroughly demoralized, had apparently entirely forgotten that
+Christopher was the son of the senior partner.
+
+"I was too surprised! It was all so quick, you see. It almost seemed as
+if it hadn't happened," repeated the boy wretchedly.
+
+"Why blame the boy, Hollings, when you yourself hadn't the wit to be on
+your guard?" put in the man called Grant.
+
+"That's so! That's so!" moaned the unfortunate fellow.
+
+"At least he has lost little time. He has given us pretty prompt warning
+and enabled us to get our nets out much sooner than we should have
+otherwise. But for him, you might not have discovered anything was wrong
+before night."
+
+"I know. Yes, he's done a big service, certainly. But it would have been
+a bigger had he stopped the thieves before they made their get-away."
+
+"There is no use to go back to that. Neither you nor I would, perhaps,
+have done better. Had he shouted from the balcony and accused two
+innocent customers of stealing, we should have been a sight worse off.
+The lad was just being prudent."
+
+"Yes! Yes, he did the wise thing, I guess, since he wasn't sure."
+
+"We cannot insult patrons without proof."
+
+"No."
+
+"Besides, if Master Christopher took good heed of the rascals and can
+help to identify them, he will do still further service."
+
+"To be sure--yes--yes--of course," the distraught clerk answered. "But
+it is all very unfortunate. To think of their putting it over on me--me,
+who have been here twenty years and never lost an article. It's
+terrible!"
+
+"Cheer up, Hollings."
+
+"I shall lose my place," wailed Hollings. "Lose it as sure as the world.
+Wait until the boss hears of it."
+
+"My father is never unjust," Christopher put in stoutly.
+
+"Your father? I beg your pardon, Mr. Christopher. I'd forgotten you were
+here, sir. No, your father always does the square thing," Hollings
+hastened to declare. "But he'll not understand. He'll think I should
+have been more careful! And so I had--I won't deny it. But my wife and
+children--my God!"
+
+"Come, come, Hollings," interrupted a newcomer, whom the group greeted
+as Mr. Rhinehart. "There's no good crying over spilled milk. We may get
+the ring back again, you know."
+
+"Oh, do you think so?"
+
+"There is a good chance of it. I have telephoned and headquarters has
+its nets set already. The pawnshops are watched and so are the roads out
+of the city. The police, too, have their orders. Any minute we expect
+the inspector to talk with you and this young gentleman here."
+
+"With me?" Christopher exclaimed with a start.
+
+"Surely! You're the hero of this adventure, son."
+
+"Not much of a hero, I'm afraid."
+
+"Well, you're the one who escaped being the hero, then," laughed Mr.
+Rhinehart. "At least, you know more of the affair than does anybody
+else."
+
+"But I'd be scared to death of the inspector," faltered the boy.
+
+"Pooh! He's only a man, sonny, like any other. You've nothing to fear
+from him, since you are on the right side of the fence. If you were on
+the wrong side, then indeed you might tremble."
+
+"The inspector has arrived," a messenger from upstairs announced. "He is
+in Mr. Burton's office with the members of the firm. He wishes to see
+the house detective, the salesman, and young Burton."
+
+"I guess I'm in for it," Hollings whispered to Mr. Rhinehart.
+
+"Nonsense! Tell the truth--that's all you've got to do."
+
+"But I was such a duffer!"
+
+"I fumbled the ball, too, Mr. Hollings," interrupted Christopher
+consolingly. "Remember I didn't play a very brilliant game."
+
+"The game wasn't up to you, sonny," Hollings returned. "It was I. I did
+the foozling."
+
+Up they shot in the elevator.
+
+The messenger in his uniform and buttons went ahead and opened the
+door.
+
+"Mr. Hollings is here, sir," announced he. "And Mr. Christopher and the
+detective, Mr. Waldron."
+
+As the three crossed the threshold and entered the office, Christopher
+saw Mr. Norcross and the inspector. A deep hush was upon the room. Not
+only did its occupants look grave--they looked severe--awesome. One
+glance and the lad did not wonder poor Hollings' knees knocked together.
+Mr. Norcross was imposing enough, but the inspector was even worse; and
+as for the senior partner of the firm--well, he was Mr. Christopher Mark
+Antony Burton, third, arrayed in his most awful dignity. Even his son
+trembled before him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AN ENCOUNTER WITH THE POLICE
+
+
+"And so, Hollings," the great Mr. Burton began, "while your back was
+turned, you have lost some of our valuable diamonds."
+
+"My back was not turned, sir," objected Hollings. "I merely looked away
+a minute."
+
+"Long enough to give a pair of thieves the opportunity to work."
+
+"It hardly seemed so."
+
+"But it was."
+
+"I'm afraid so, Mr. Burton. I am deeply sorry, sir; and yet had I it to
+do over again I hardly see--"
+
+"It wasn't his fault, Dad--indeed it wasn't. I saw the whole thing, you
+know. It was done so fast you almost thought your eyes deceived you."
+
+"Oh, the men were experts. There can be no questions about that!" cut in
+the deep voice of the inspector. "Now, Mr. Burton, instead of wasting
+time in reprimands, we've got to get down to facts. May I question these
+people?"
+
+"Certainly, certainly!" Mr. Burton, however, seemed to be taken aback at
+being treated with such scant ceremony. "This is Mr. Hollings, the
+clerk; and this lad is my son, Christopher."
+
+"Very good! Now, Mr. Hollings, suppose you tell your tale first. Relate
+exactly what happened--not what you thought or supposed. Stick to
+facts."
+
+"I will, sir."
+
+In a trembling voice Hollings began his story, and as he recounted it,
+Mr. Inspector jotted it down, merely pausing now and then to ask a curt
+question.
+
+"Can you describe the men?" inquired he, when the narrative was
+finished.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't, sir, beyond the fact that both of them wore raccoon
+motoring coats, and kept their collars pretty well turned up. You see I
+was far too much occupied with what they were saying to consider how
+they looked."
+
+"You could not identify them then?"
+
+"Not positively--no, I regret to say I couldn't. I might possibly
+recognize the hand or the voice of the big man."
+
+"The one who tried on the rings?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"But you could not pick him out from a group of others or identify him
+by photograph."
+
+"No, I couldn't."
+
+"That's a pity. In your work you should be more observing."
+
+"I know I should. I will be in the future."
+
+The inspector smiled grimly.
+
+"We all lock the gate after the cows are out of the pasture," commented
+he. "Well, if this is all you can offer, I'll try the boy. Your name,
+sonny."
+
+"Christopher Burton."
+
+"Christopher Mark Antony Burton, fourth," interrupted his father in an
+aggrieved tone.
+
+"Does all that belong to you?" asked the inspector, his eyes fixed on
+the lad's face with hawk-like scrutiny.
+
+"I'm afraid it does."
+
+"Afraid, Christopher!" Mr. Burton ejaculated. "Afraid! Why, it is a
+fine, honorable name. Your grandfather and your great-grandfather--"
+
+"Suppose we omit his grandfathers for the present," said the inspector,
+unceremoniously putting an end to Mr. Burton's dissertation. "So that's
+your name, is it?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Why didn't you give the whole of it at the beginning?"
+
+"Oh, because there are such yards of it."
+
+The inspector grinned.
+
+"Now be good enough to tell us _your_ version of this affair. Relate
+exactly what you saw, heard, and did."
+
+"I'm afraid I didn't do much," protested Christopher sheepishly.
+
+"You might have done more and I won't deny I wish to goodness you had.
+However, you acted with considerable sense. You might have done
+worse--much worse."
+
+"I'm glad if you think so," the boy asserted modestly. "It seemed to me
+afterward that I had been very stupid. It all was so quick! Almost like
+sleight-of-hand."
+
+"You were up against experts, sonny," Mr. Inspector remarked more
+gently than he had yet spoken. "You did well to detect them at all. Now
+fire ahead with your yarn."
+
+In simple, straightforward fashion Christopher told his story and it was
+evident several parts afforded his critical listener satisfaction, for
+twice he muttered beneath his breath:
+
+"Very good! _Very_ good!"
+
+The tale finished, Christopher paused, breathless.
+
+"Could you give me any description of these fellows?" his cross
+questioner inquired.
+
+"The big chap--the one who tried on the rings--was tall, heavy, had
+light hair and a bald spot on the top of his head. I looked right down
+on it."
+
+"Excellent!"
+
+"His eyes I could not see. His face was smooth-shaven, and on his right
+cheek, going from his ear almost to the corner of his mouth, was a
+white, queer sort of scar that--"
+
+The inspector started from his seat, then sank back again.
+
+"Ah!" was all he said. "And the other fellow?"
+
+"Small, dark, black-haired, with a coat much too big for him. His nose
+was sharp, and he kept looking over his shoulder."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"I'm afraid that's all, except that his hands were dirty as if they had
+been in ink or grease or something. Maybe they hadn't, though."
+
+The inspector beamed upon him.
+
+"You have a very observing son, Mr. Burton, very! He's a fine lad. You
+should be proud of him."
+
+"Has he helped you at all?"
+
+"At all? He has given me precisely the information I was after."
+
+"And you think you could identify the men?"
+
+"I know them already."
+
+"Know who they are?" gasped Christopher.
+
+"Yes."
+
+It was obvious the expert was enjoying the lad's mystification.
+
+"You don't mean you know their names," persisted Christopher.
+
+"Indeed I do--all their many names, for they have almost as long a list
+of them as you have yourself."
+
+The inspector evidently considered this a good joke, for he laughed
+heartily at it without noticing how the great Mr. Burton glared at him.
+
+"And not only do I know their names, but I have their pictures as well,"
+he continued, when he had done laughing. "What do you think of that?"
+
+"Met them before, have you?" interrogated Mr. Burton, his disapproval
+mollified to some degree by his pride in his son.
+
+"Oh, I know all about that pair," replied the inspector; "if they prove
+to be the couple I think them. No wonder your clerk failed to suspect
+them. They are very polished gentleman."
+
+"They were indeed, sir," Hollings put in. "They had a million-dollar air
+about them."
+
+"I know they had. They are crackajacks at this sort of thing. They are
+wanted this minute in Chicago for a job not unlike this one."
+
+"Really!"
+
+Christopher's face glowed with excitement. To think he had actually
+beheld two such desperate characters and given evidence against them! If
+he had only spoken sooner and helped to capture them!
+
+Something of this regret probably shadowed his brow, for the inspector
+added:
+
+"They would have managed their get-away even had you given the alarm,
+son. Both were doubtless well armed and prepared to make their escape.
+Taken by surprise, as you clerks all were, no one could have stopped
+them. They would have shot any person who obstructed their dash for
+liberty."
+
+"Do you think so?" Poor Hollings drew a breath of relief.
+
+"I know it. They've done it before. They had their pistols and a waiting
+motor car, and had no mind to be caught."
+
+"Then if I'd yelled from the balcony--"
+
+"It would have done no good and would, perhaps, have done much harm
+instead. You would merely have furnished an alarm on which they would
+instantly have acted. As it is, we know them, and our nets are out. I
+would, however, like to take your son down to headquarters, Mr. Burton,
+and let him look over our photographs just to see if he can pick these
+winners from the bunch."
+
+"Certainly, sir. Certainly! Get your hat and coat, Christopher. I
+believe I'll go along too, Mr. Inspector, if you are willing. My son and
+I were just starting out to lunch."
+
+"By all means; I have a car here."
+
+"I don't suppose I could persuade you to--"
+
+"No, thank you, Mr. Burton. I'm up to my ears in business, sir. However,
+you are very kind. I must get right back to headquarters as fast as I
+can."
+
+"I see."
+
+"This is a detailed description of the ring, is it?" continued he,
+tapping an envelope he held in his hand. "Size of the diamonds, their
+weight, the complete record?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Good. I guess that's all we need."
+
+"Do you think you will be able to--"
+
+"To land the jewels, you mean? I can't tell you that, sir. It's too
+early in the game."
+
+"I suppose so. It was a foolish question."
+
+Evidently the inspector was of the same opinion, for he made no answer.
+
+"Well, that's all, Hollings," announced the great man, turning to his
+clerk. "You may go now."
+
+"I hope and pray the ring may be recovered, sir. I shall not have a
+happy moment until it is."
+
+"All that must rest with the police. The case is in their keeping now,"
+was his employer's terse reply.
+
+In the meantime, Mr. Norcross had not said anything at all. He seldom
+did say anything. But as the group rose to depart, he dragged himself
+up out of his chair and, as if giving his blessing to the enterprise,
+remarked:
+
+"Good luck to you, Inspector!"
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+Then Christopher, his father and the Chief entered the elevator and
+afterward the car that took them to headquarters.
+
+Here the boy had displayed before him an array of photographs from which
+he had not the slightest trouble in picking that of the man with the
+scar; but his sharp-nosed companion he was unable to identify.
+
+"I thought I'd recognize him anywhere," lamented Christopher. "His hair
+was so black and thick that--"
+
+At the words, the inspector jumped a little.
+
+"Ha!" exclaimed he. "Tony wore a wig, did he?" He opened a drawer. "Any
+of these look like him?"
+
+He passed to Christopher a handful of pictures.
+
+"There he is," cried the lad presently, choosing one out of the lot.
+"There he is! Only he didn't have his glasses on."
+
+"I fancy he isn't dependent on them all the time," chuckled the
+inspector. "Well done, my boy. Yes, that's Tony when he's dressed up.
+The reason you didn't recognize him was because in the other picture he
+wasn't. Clothes do not make the man, but wigs, glasses, and things
+change him a good deal. That's all, gentlemen. I now have all the
+information I wish, and need not detain you."
+
+"I suppose I shall be notified when any news is obtained," said Mr.
+Burton, rising. He wasn't used to being dismissed in this curt fashion.
+When any dismissing was to be done, it was usually he who did it.
+
+"Yes, sir. As soon as anything definite is known. _Good_ morning!" But
+to Christopher he reached out a detaining hand. "You've done uncommonly
+well, sonny," he whispered. "Don't worry because you didn't land the
+chaps. I'm only thankful you didn't give them the chance to shoot you.
+We'll have the birdies yet."
+
+"Shall I have to go to court?"
+
+"Court? Perhaps. But, Lord! A boy that can tell as straight a story as
+you needn't fear that. It's not half as bad as being stood up to face
+me."
+
+"I didn't mind you at all."
+
+"I'm glad of that. I don't want my job to turn me into an ogre. There
+are people who don't feel that way about me." He laughed slyly. "Don't
+you fret about being haled into court. Several persons besides ourselves
+wish to meet those two distinguished gentlemen we are after. When we get
+them they will have to be shipped to Chicago and various other cities.
+You stand a slim chance of having any very extensive acquaintance with
+them."
+
+The voice of Mr. Burton, who was loitering impatiently outside, was now
+heard calling:
+
+"Christopher! Christopher!"
+
+"That's your dad. He's getting tired of cooling his heels in the
+corridor. He isn't used to it. Better trot along, sonny. Somebody might
+mistake him for a questionable character and run him in."
+
+The inspector's hearty "Haw, haw!" lent to his laughter the suspicion
+that he found something intensely humorous about Mr. Christopher Mark
+Antony Burton, third, senior partner of the firm of Burton and
+Norcross.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHRISTOPHER ASTONISHES HIMSELF
+
+
+It does not take long for news to travel, and when Christopher entered
+the shop the next morning it was to find himself quite a hero. On every
+hand clerks saluted him with such greetings as:
+
+"Well, how is Sherlock Holmes to-day?"
+
+"Have you been landing any more bandits, Mr. Christopher?"
+
+"Joined the secret service yet, Master Christopher?"
+
+Poor Christopher, who was none too proud of the part he had played, was
+a good deal abashed; nevertheless he tried to accept the banter
+cheerfully, perceiving that it was kindly intentioned. But the glory of
+it paled at last, and, weary of such jests, he fled to seek out
+McPhearson, who, he felt sure, would offer him no flattery.
+
+The Scotchman was so busy toiling over the bracket clock with the chimes
+that he did no more than glance up when the boy dropped down on the
+stool opposite.
+
+"I hear you did a pretty bit of work yesterday," he at last remarked.
+
+"No, I didn't. On the contrary I was darn stupid. I had the chance to be
+a hero, but I muffed it."
+
+"They didn't seem to think so downstairs," was the clockmaker's laconic
+retort.
+
+"Oh, I didn't do much of anything, honest I didn't, Mr. McPhearson. I
+just happened along at the right time--or, perhaps--at the wrong,"
+explained the boy with an embarrassed laugh.
+
+"Apparently it was decidedly at the wrong," observed the old man,
+continuing to file with extreme care a bit of brass he held between his
+fingers.
+
+Christopher watched, admiring the speed and skill of his gnarled
+fingers.
+
+"How's she getting along?" ventured he after a long silence.
+
+"She's about O. K. now. Running fine--I'm just tinkering the catch on
+the door, for even Richard Parsons cannot coax things into wearing
+forever. She'll go home to-day."
+
+There was a sigh from the Scotchman.
+
+"I do believe you're sorry to be done with her," asserted the boy
+mischievously. A second later, however, he regretted his impulsive jest,
+for his companion answered gravely:
+
+"I am. I've enjoyed working on her. I'd be far sorrier, though, did I
+not know she is going where she will be appreciated. The woman that owns
+her watches over her as if she were a live creature--and indeed she
+is--almost."
+
+"It's nice to feel she isn't being wasted on some dumbbell, isn't it?"
+declared Christopher, catching the old man's enthusiasm.
+
+"She's not being wasted. I can answer for that. I know the house where
+she lives well, for I've been there times without number to regulate
+clocks. There are some beauties and they have the history of every one
+of them--the name of the maker, the date when they were made, the place,
+and all. I like to handle clocks for people like that. It shows they are
+intelligent and care. Some folks do not know one thing about their
+clocks. They won't even take the trouble to wind them regularly.
+Nevertheless they are the first ones to fuss if the poor things fail to
+keep good time. I wonder how they would like, for example, to have their
+meals served to them just whenever somebody happened to think of it."
+
+Christopher nodded agreement with the sentiment.
+
+"To be sure," McPhearson continued, "people sometimes own clocks that
+aren't worth much pains. Still, it's only right to keep them cleaned and
+help them to do the best they can, even at that. All clocks can't be
+Tompions, or Grahams, or Quares, any more than we can all be Washingtons
+and Lincolns. It isn't their fault nor ours."
+
+"You care a lot about clocks, don't you?" meditated Christopher aloud.
+
+"I suppose I do," the old man confessed. "Clocks have come to be almost
+people to me; in fact, some of them are a good sight better than people.
+By that, I mean they have finer traits. They go quietly ahead and do
+their work without bluster or complaint. When they don't it is usually
+because something's the matter with them. They are patient, faithful,
+useful, and were they to be taken out of the world they would be
+terribly missed and would leave it a pretty higgledy-piggledy place."
+
+"I guess there is no danger of the world being without clocks," returned
+Christopher comfortably. "There seem to be plenty to go round."
+
+"But there weren't always plenty," broke in McPhearson quickly. "You
+chance to live in a fortunate age, young man, and do not half appreciate
+your blessings. Had you lived a few hundred years ago you would have had
+no clocks."
+
+"Mercy on us! Why, how on earth did people manage to get on without
+them?"
+
+"Primitive persons studied the sun and calculated by that," McPhearson
+responded. "Then some ingenious creature thought out the sundial whereby
+the hour could be gauged by a shadow; also marks were made where the sun
+would strike at a given time--perhaps at noon. Such a notch was called
+the noon mark."
+
+"Oh, gee! But suppose there was no sun?"
+
+"Exactly! Now you have put your finger on the pulse of the dilemma! What
+was to be done when there was no sun? The sundial at best was none too
+correct. In different latitudes, too, different markings were needed.
+Moreover, a sundial, to be of practical value, had to be kept steady.
+What was to happen on shipboard? On cloudy days? At night?"
+
+"The sundial was about as much good as a fan would be in Greenland,"
+grinned Christopher.
+
+"Yes, just about. It was these sunless hours that were the problem."
+
+"Humph! I never thought of that in my life."
+
+"Most of us don't."
+
+"I suppose that was why people began making clocks."
+
+"You don't for a moment imagine men leaped from sundials to clocks, do
+you?" interrogated the Scotchman quizzically.
+
+"Oh, perhaps not such nice ones as ours," conceded the boy with easy
+unconcern. "Still they had to tell time somehow."
+
+"Clocks were a long way off from suns and shadows."
+
+"But what did come next?"
+
+"To sundials, you mean? Well, for a long, long time people could think
+of nothing better. They introduced trifling remedies now and then,
+however. For example, in the seventeenth century they evolved a portable
+dial that could be carried from place to place. Sometimes this was
+combined with a compass; sometimes it was made in the form of a ring. It
+was an awkward substitute for the watch, but it was, nevertheless,
+great-great-great-grandfather to it. Yet advantageous as it was to be
+able to carry the time about with you, it did nothing to lessen the
+long, unmarked stretch of darkness that descended upon the earth every
+night. How was man to solve that difficulty?"
+
+"How indeed?"
+
+"That was his puzzle--his nut to crack. Throughout the ages it has been
+conundrums like these that have taxed human ingenuity and made of life
+such an alluring adventure. On the conquering of difficulties
+civilization has been built up. Well, man now attacked this problem of
+telling time. He did not aspire to narrow it down to any very fine
+point, for at that period of history one day was very like another, and
+he was a leisurely being with little to do but eat, sleep, fight or
+hunt. Notwithstanding this, however, he did want to know _when_ it was
+noon; _when_ it would be day. King Alfred, one of the English monarchs,
+hit upon a plan for telling the hours of the night by means of tall
+candles, made to burn a definite interval. When, for example, one of his
+candles burned out, he knew that four or six hours had passed. Other
+persons went further and had candles marked off into hours with black
+and white wax--"
+
+"That was a clever scheme!"
+
+"Clever, yes; and all very well for kings who could afford to burn wax
+tapers night after night. But there were, alas, many unfortunates who
+couldn't. Accordingly the obstacle persisted, and urged the world on to
+the next step up the time-telling ladder."
+
+"And what was that?" demanded Christopher with interest.
+
+"Telling time by water."
+
+"By _water_! But how?"
+
+"It was not so difficult as it sounds. In reality it was quite a simple
+plan. The ancients would take a jar, make a tiny hole in the bottom of
+it, fill it with water, and let the water drip slowly out. Having
+measured how long it would take to empty the jar, they had a sort of
+water clock."
+
+"Bravo! That was certainly easy."
+
+"Easy and far better than the sundial, too, for water would drip either
+in light or darkness, on cloudy days as well as bright ones. By means of
+marks on the jar, shorter intervals of time could also be determined.
+The receptacle, however, had to be kept filled and the hole free so
+there should be no variation in the regularity of the dripping. This
+water clock was called a _clepsydra_, the name being taken from two
+Greek words meaning 'thief of water.' Well, as you may imagine, the
+populace were delighted with this contrivance. It seemed as if now they
+certainly had the prize for which they had been searching. Moreover,
+with the water clock a new factor in time came into being. Instead of
+telling _when_, as the sundial did, the clepsydra, by measuring a given
+interval, told _how long_, which was a very different thing indeed. In
+other words it began to draw people's attention to the duration of
+time."
+
+"That is different, isn't it?" mused the boy.
+
+"Quite another matter altogether," McPhearson said. "Immediately the
+Athenians, who had invented the device, put it to work and proceeded to
+limit the length of time speakers should talk in their courts of
+justice. Evidently then, as now, men were fond of making speeches and
+arguing and became so fascinated by hearing themselves talk that they
+forgot to stop. Now here was something that would put a check on them.
+When a case came up for a hearing, the accuser was allowed the first jar
+of water, the accused the second, and the judge the third. Stationed
+beside the clepsydra was a special officer whose duty it was not only to
+fill it but to stop the flow whenever a speaker was interrupted, thereby
+making certain he was not cheated of any of the time due him."
+
+"A bully scheme!" Christopher remarked.
+
+"It worked," McPhearson answered. "With such strict rules you may be
+sure there was none of the thing the Athenians termed 'babbling.' Men
+guarded their words like jewels when each word meant the dripping away
+of his allotted time."
+
+"And did people continue to use this water clock?"
+
+"Yes, for quite a time, but after a while they began to find fault with
+it. In the first place they noticed that when the vessel was full the
+greater pressure of water caused it to drip much faster than when there
+was not much in it. This they had not considered before, and the
+discovery forced them to attempt to improve it. This they did by
+concocting a sort of double jar. In the lower one there was a float that
+rose as the container filled; and since the top one was constantly
+replenished, it kept the pressure in the bottom one uniform."
+
+"The best yet!"
+
+"Much the best. In fact it was a stride ahead from several standpoints,
+for although it could not really be termed a machine it nevertheless was
+a device that did for man something he would otherwise have had to do
+for himself, which is the aim of all machinery. In just that proportion
+he moved toward a civilization where artificial methods relieved him of
+his labor. Thus he advanced quite a distance from that primitive
+condition when he did everything with his hands toward his next state of
+fashioning tools that would do what he wished to do better and quicker;
+here was something which worked independently of him."
+
+"Why, so it was! I never thought before that man passed through those
+three stages," ejaculated Christopher with pleasure; "it makes our old
+forefathers twice as interesting, doesn't it?"
+
+"Three times as interesting," the Scotchman laughingly responded. "Facts
+make very delightful stories, if you fasten them together. Scattered,
+unrelated information is both dry and worthless. It is only when linked
+up in the chain of history that it becomes interesting and valuable."
+
+"The trouble with me is I never know where the things I learn belong,"
+observed the lad soberly. "It's like fitting pieces into a puzzle when
+you've no notion what picture you are making."
+
+"I know, sonny," returned the old man with sympathy. "But do not imagine
+you are the only one who is not always able to put in the proper place
+the scraps of knowledge in his possession. Many an older person has
+wondered what part his learning had in the gigantic total of the ages.
+World history is conceived on a pretty big scale, you see. But that all
+we glean is somehow linked up with the rest, you may be very sure.
+Certainly this clepsydra was."
+
+"It's easy enough to see that _afterward_," asserted Christopher. "And
+so the Greeks managed to fix up their water clock to their satisfaction,
+after all."
+
+"Alas, not wholly to their satisfaction," was the answer, "for presently
+other difficulties concerning it arose. For example, unless the water
+poured into it was absolutely clean, the hole would fill up and the drip
+become slower; moreover, you must consider what happened in cold
+weather, for not only were these water clocks in unheated buildings, but
+you will recall they were set up in the market place or public square so
+the villagers might consult them. Here assembled the watch, whose duty
+it was to patrol the town and blow a horn for the changing of the guard;
+here, too, was stationed the officer whose duty it was at stated hours
+to refill the clepsydra."
+
+"Oh, I suppose the darn thing froze--that probably was the next
+obstacle," grinned Christopher.
+
+"It was," nodded McPhearson.
+
+"Then it couldn't have been much better than the old sundial," the lad
+sniffed, with contempt.
+
+"It had its outs. Nevertheless it held the front of the stage about two
+thousand years, and then I am sure you will agree it was high time a
+better device was substituted."
+
+"And what was that?"
+
+"The sand glass."
+
+"Our hourglass, you mean?"
+
+"Yes--or half-hour, quarter-hour--any fraction of an hour you choose.
+The idea of the sand glass was not entirely new, because some form of
+running sand had long before been used in the Far East. But the sand
+glass as we know it was new to the European world, and you cannot but
+agree it was a far more practical article than was the clepsydra for it
+neither froze nor had to be replenished. Moreover, it was lighter, less
+bulky, and could be carried about, and the old water clocks could
+not--that is, not without great inconvenience and danger of breaking.
+Oh, the sand glass was vastly better! Even now, after all these years,
+it is not entirely out of date, for it is still used to mark definite
+intervals of time."
+
+"I have one at home to practice by."
+
+"Many persons use them," the clockmaker averred. "It is not unusual to
+have speakers limit their addresses by them. In fact, a two-minute glass
+is still employed in the House of Commons and until 1839 the British
+Navy measured the watch on shipboard by a glass that ran an hour and a
+half. The marking off of time in such definite lengths as this, however,
+did not take place in ancient times. At that period people seldom
+attempted fine measurements of the day. The problem of hours, minutes,
+seconds, and fractions of them was something they scarcely dreamed of.
+Nor did they need to cut their time up into such small parts. Life, as I
+before remarked, was not very rushing. Nobody expected to meet anybody
+else at a particular instant in those far-away, lazy, easy-going times,
+or to go anywhere on the minute. If you arrived at where you were going
+before the darkness fell that was all even the most ambitious asked. The
+splitting up of time with our present-day nicety is of comparatively
+modern working out."
+
+"That seems funny, doesn't it?" Christopher suggested.
+
+"Yes, until you see how naturally it grew out of an advancing
+civilization. After this slow-moving, sleepy interval of idleness and
+ignorance, when there were no books, no schools, no learning of any
+kind, there came a great waking up, or Renaissance, which stirred the
+populace in every direction. Printing was invented, books written, and
+people, hearing of other lands, began to travel. In consequence life
+became busier and time more valuable. Moreover, with the spread of
+Christianity, monasteries and convents were everywhere erected, and
+attached to these religious orders were specified intervals for work,
+prayer and various masses and services. Such periods were marked off by
+the ringing of bells. Thus it happened quite consistently that the first
+clocks introduced were in religious buildings and on the spires of
+churches and were without faces or hands, merely indicating by the
+stroke of one or more bells the termination of the hour."
+
+"But I should not call that a clock at all," Christopher objected.
+
+"Oh, it was a clock. Such a contrivance could not perform its function
+without works. The bell or bells rung as a result of turning wheels.
+Moreover, the very word 'clock' is derived from a root which in almost
+every language means 'bell.' The French was _cloche_, the Saxon
+_clugga_. Thus it came about that later on the works of more modern
+clocks frequently had two distinct mechanisms: the bell portion that
+chimed or struck the hour, and the section that included the moving of
+the hands. Years afterward we find this distinction still maintained,
+and discover old clockmakers speaking of a clock that did not strike
+merely as a _timekeeper_."
+
+"How curious!" murmured Christopher. "And who was it that evolved this
+machine that would strike the hours?"
+
+"That, I suppose, we shall never positively know; but in all probability
+it was a monk, who, having considerable leisure at his command and
+perhaps being held responsible for the ringing of the monastery bell
+once in so often, bethought himself of a scheme whereby the bell could
+be made to ring without him. History tells us that William, Abbott of
+Hirschau, who died toward the end of the eleventh century, invented a
+horologium modeled after the celestial hemisphere; therefore he may have
+been the inventor of the clock, for soon after his death these striking
+bells begin to make their appearance on church towers and in other
+religious buildings.
+
+"A couple of centuries later we read of clocks being sent as presents.
+Sultan Saladin sent to Emperor Frederick II a very ambitious article
+which by means of weights and wheels not only indicated the hours but
+the course of the sun, moon, and planets. Now who invented such an
+affair as that we do not know. It must, however, have been some
+ingenious Saracen who certainly could have heard nothing about the
+Abbott of Hirschau and his striking bells. Indeed, when one considers
+the superstition of the age, we cannot but grant it was almost fortunate
+a clock such as ours was not then invented, for people were great
+believers in witchcraft and were liable to attribute to evil spirits
+anything they did not understand, and forthwith destroy it."
+
+"How ridiculous!" scoffed Christopher.
+
+"They were children, remember--intellectual children--ignorant as babies
+because, poor souls, they had had neither books nor teaching. Savages
+are, you know, terrified at a thing they cannot fathom and these persons
+were as yet little more. Well, at any rate, clocks began to make their
+appearance. By 1286 one of these faceless mechanisms was put up on St.
+Paul's Cathedral in London; and before 1300, others were, by order of
+the clergy, installed at Canterbury and Westminster."
+
+"And these just chimed or struck?"
+
+"That is all. On some was a single bell; on others crudely carved wooden
+figures beat out the hour on a series of bells. All these were known as
+'clocks,' the term 'horologe' not yet being in common use."
+
+"Horologe!" repeated Christopher slowly. "You don't suppose that word
+has anything to do with the Latin _hora_, meaning hour, do you?"
+
+"I suppose it has a good deal," McPhearson returned with a dry smile.
+
+"Really!" Plainly Christopher was delighted by this discovery. "Well,
+well! Old Caesar, Esquire, isn't so bad, after all. _Hora!_ I never
+expected to see the day that stuff would be of any earthly use."
+
+"I told you all you needed to do with what you learn is to link it to
+something else."
+
+"But I never seemed to be able to hook it on before," confided the lad
+frankly. "Gee, but it makes me chesty! I'm pleased to death with
+myself!"
+
+To save himself the old Scotchman could not but chuckle at his
+companion's naive satisfaction.
+
+"Somehow it's a bit tough to get this linking-up idea just when I can't
+do any more studying," added the boy a trifle wistfully.
+
+"Oh, you will be back at school before long, son; and if you go back
+more eager to learn will that not be a gain?"
+
+"Sure it will! _Hora!_ Jove! I made a neat guess, didn't I? And that's
+where that horologium you were talking about came from, too. I'm not so
+worse. Miss Alden, my Latin teacher, would fall in a faint if she heard
+me rolling out these Latin derivatives, I'll bet. I'm not often taken
+this way. Say, Mr. McPhearson, I seem to be learning quite a lot if I'm
+not in school. This is a darn pleasanter way to do it, too."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CLOCKS THAT WERE GOOD AS PLAYS
+
+
+By the end of two weeks, school with its games and its bells for
+recitation had become a thing of the past and Christopher felt as much
+at home in his father's shop as if his name was inscribed upon its
+payroll.
+
+Nevertheless, despite the lapse of time, no trace either of the missing
+gems or of the two diamond robbers had been secured. Both Mr. Burton and
+Mr. Norcross were beginning to be discouraged, and feared the culprits
+would never be captured; even Christopher's hope of seeing his adventure
+brought to a favorable climax was fading. As for poor Hollings, he was
+another man altogether and it seemed as if he would never be able to
+hold his head up again. A part of the value of the gems was, to be sure,
+covered by burglar insurance, and therefore the loss to the firm would
+not be great; rather it was the disgrace of the episode that bowed the
+salesman to the ground. He was an old and trusted employee who took the
+matter so hard that within the fortnight he aged visibly and his hair
+actually seemed to whiten. Christopher pitied him and so did everybody
+else, and by and by public sentiment was almost more concerned with his
+unhappiness than with the tragedy that caused it.
+
+"Dad doesn't harbor any grudge against you, Mr. Hollings!" repeated the
+lad for the twentieth time, in a hope of consoling the unfortunate
+clerk. "Neither does Mr. Norcross. I heard him tell my father so."
+
+"That isn't the point, sonny," his listener responded dejectedly. "Of
+course it's kind of them not to blame me. They'd be well within their
+rights were they to turn me off. What bothers me is that I should let
+such a thing happen."
+
+"You couldn't help it."
+
+"I know--I know. It doesn't seem as if I could," the man answered,
+shaking his head. "But I ought to have helped it--somehow."
+
+That was Hollings' constant lament.
+
+Round and round in a circle went he and Christopher, the lad constantly
+trying to brighten and encourage, and the clerk as invariably bringing
+up with this same doleful plaint. He was not to be comforted.
+
+In the meantime Christopher, along with offering optimistic and repeated
+assertions that the diamonds would surely be found, was gleaning a
+surprising amount of information as he flitted about the store. He
+learned not only of clocks but interesting bits concerning the value and
+cutting of gems, the repairing of jewelry; the patterns of silverware,
+strange facts about pearls.
+
+Since he was free to browse wherever he chose, he found no monotony in
+his environment. Furthermore he gradually sifted out the men who had
+made something of their calling and attached himself to them because
+they invariably proved to be the most interesting. Those who merely
+sold what they had to sell and received the money he classed as bores
+and thereafter avoided.
+
+It was amazing how many more of the latter there were than the former.
+The man possessing a broad knowledge of the wares he handled was rare.
+Several clerks, for example, were behind the gem counters but the boy
+soon discovered that when they wished an expert opinion they with one
+accord turned to a stumpy little fellow with a bald head who appeared to
+know every stone in the showcase by heart and knew just what country it
+came from; whether it was well cut; if it was perfect or marred by
+flaws; whether it was a tinge off the desired color, and numerous other
+facts concerning it. Christopher had not dreamed there was so much to
+know about precious stones, let alone all the wealth of romance
+connected with them as Mr. Rhinehart had stored up.
+
+He could tell you where were the largest diamonds, rubies, and emeralds
+in the world; who owned them, and what they were worth; could give the
+history of many of the finest pearls and celebrated necklaces made from
+them; and at his tongue's end were stories regarding various gems as
+thrilling and delightful as any Arabian Night's tales. He it was who
+also had not only read about but had actually seen many of the crown
+jewels of the world and knew where celebrated collections of cameos,
+jade, and quaint Egyptian ornaments were exhibited. Indeed he seemed to
+have read and studied omnivorously and not a week passed that he did not
+add to his store of learning some interesting romance of a pair of old
+Sheffield candlesticks or a royal ruby.
+
+In fact Mr. Rhinehart was not just a man; he was a walking story-book,
+and, like McPhearson, a thoroughly delightful companion. Oh, he did not
+consider his job a humdrum one, it was easy to see that. He had lifted
+the traffic of jeweled ornaments, by means of which he earned his daily
+bread, out of the class of mere salesmanship.
+
+"You never get tired of your work, do you, Mr. Rhinehart?" commented
+Christopher, when on a day trade was light, he stood listening to the
+alluring adventure of a string of black pearls.
+
+"Tired of it? Why should I?"
+
+"But lots of the men do," was the naive observation. "They come in
+yawning in the morning, and seem bored to death at having to do the same
+old thing."
+
+Mr. Rhinehart smiled.
+
+"Work is what you make of it. A job can be interesting and carry you far
+beyond its narrow limitations or it can sink into becoming a daily
+grind. It's all as you see it. You get out of it just about what you put
+in."
+
+"I begin to think you do," agreed Christopher. "I'm sure Mr. McPhearson,
+who repairs clocks upstairs, gets a hundred times more fun out of them
+than do the other men."
+
+"McPhearson, the old Scotchman, you mean? A fine old chap, isn't he? So
+you have picked him out already! Well, you have chosen well, for there
+is almost nothing about clocks that he doesn't know," asserted Mr.
+Rhinehart with enthusiasm.
+
+"I had no idea there was so much to know about them," confided the boy.
+"All I ever thought about a clock was to look and see whether it was
+right or not, and blame it if it wasn't. Now I've begun to believe it is
+pretty wonderful when it is."
+
+"It is pretty wonderful," Mr. Rhinehart agreed. "The trouble with us is
+that we live in an age of wonders and have come to accept with
+complacency the fruit of the many brains that have given us myriads of
+perfect mechanisms. Almost every convenience and luxury about us was
+produced by toil and patient experiment. Clocks, for example, were very
+long in becoming the fine, reliable products they now are, as no doubt
+you have already learned. When their first makers got them to go at all
+the feat seemed so remarkable that the fact they did not keep good time
+was entirely lost sight of. But just you let _our_ clocks or watches
+vary a minute or two a week, and we are quite out of humor with them,
+never taking into consideration how we jolt them about and subject them
+to heat, cold, and irregular winding. Where can you find any other piece
+of machinery that will run as long or as faithfully with so little care?
+
+"A drop or two of oil, a cleaning now and then, and on they go without
+whimper or complaint, always ticking cheerfully. And the only thanks
+they ever receive is to be scolded at when they fail to any small
+degree." Mr. Rhinehart paused, then added drily, "Did any of us human
+machines do our work as well, we should have earned the right to
+belabor them. As it is I consider we stand on rather delicate ground
+when we berate either a clock or a watch--especially an old one."
+
+"Mr. McPhearson is fixing now a bracket clock made about 1720."
+
+"He is? That means it has ticked and ticked over two hundred years,
+doesn't it! Neither your machinery nor mine will last that long. Think
+of the changes a veteran like that has outlived. It would be
+interesting, wouldn't it, if it could recount its history and tell us
+where it has been all that long time? A clock that survives for such a
+stretch of years is lucky, for it must have changed hands many times and
+traveled far from its birthplace. Moreover, fashion is fickle and owners
+are seldom loyal enough to respect what is shabby and old. In
+consequence many a clock has been sentenced to the attic or cellar,
+there to lie idle and rust out its life. That is the reason a genuine
+antique clock made by one of the fine makers is so valuable, and why so
+many of them have disappeared. There are types that are scarce as hen's
+teeth. Their owners, carried away by more modern designs, could not get
+them to the junkman fast enough."
+
+Christopher would have laughed at Mr. Rhinehart's indignation had it not
+been so genuine.
+
+"Oh, I won't pretend some of the more recent products may not be better
+than some of those of the past. Nevertheless an old clock, every part of
+which was carefully fashioned by the hand of an intelligent maker in
+deliberate, painstaking manner, is a far finer product than most of
+those turned out by poor machinery. For you know--or will learn--that
+there are clocks _and clocks_. Many firms make them but all do not
+excel. Therefore I would counsel those who own the old aristocrats
+produced by skilled makers to hold on to them, even if they venerate
+neither their history nor their age. They may discard a treasure they
+cannot equal or replace. On the face of it, it stands to reason that any
+mechanism which will run two centuries or more was turned out by a
+workman who knew what he was about."
+
+"That's what Mr. McPhearson thinks," said Christopher, rising. "Clocks
+are almost people to him."
+
+"Are you going, sonny?"
+
+"Yes, I guess I'll quit bothering you and bother Mr. McPhearson for a
+while. Dad said I mustn't make too long calls on people."
+
+Moving off, the lad called the elevator and ascended to the fourth floor
+where he found his friend, the Scotchman, in the lowest of spirits.
+
+"Well, she's gone!" exclaimed he mournfully. "I couldn't in conscience
+keep her here any longer when she was running so well."
+
+"The bracket clock, you mean?"
+
+"I do. I sent Hammond with her. He should have brains enough to land her
+at home without jouncing the life out of her; and he ought to be able to
+put her in place and make sure she is ticking even. If not, I shall have
+to go up where she lives and make sure for myself."
+
+"You don't often leave the shop, do you?"
+
+"Oh, sometimes. I haven't lately because it hasn't happened to be
+necessary. Moreover, I have had a good deal to do right here. The fall
+is my season for trotting about. After houses have been closed all
+summer and owners have neglected their clocks, I have to go round and
+start them again. What a barbarous custom it is to let clocks run down
+and stand idle for months! Why, if asked to do so, we can always send
+reliable men into houses to wind the clocks and keep them regulated. It
+costs only a trifle and pays in the end, if people were only aware of
+it. A clock neither wants nor needs a rest. On the contrary it is never
+so happy as when it is ticking. The woman who stopped her clock nights
+so it should not be wearing out the works did it no kindness."
+
+A peal of appreciative laughter came from Christopher.
+
+McPhearson reached for a small traveling clock and unscrewed the back of
+it.
+
+"Humph!" sniffed he. "Solid with dirt! I'll wager it hasn't been cleaned
+for years. Still, it is expected to go all the same. If its owner had
+half that amount of dust in his eye he would be off to an oculist as
+fast as ever his feet would carry him. Such creatures do not deserve to
+have clocks. They should have lived when there weren't any."
+
+"Back in the thirteenth century, you mean?" queried Christopher, not
+unwilling to display his knowledge.
+
+"Oh, they were just beginning to get them by that time," McPhearson
+objected instantly. "By the fourteenth century there were clocks that
+really began to be clocks. In 1326, for example, the Abbott of St.
+Albans made a marvelous clock which not only showed the course of the
+sun and moon but the ebb and flow of the tide. In the meantime more big
+clocks began to be put up on the church towers. But remember, none of
+these could boast any nice degree of accuracy; it was many, many years
+later before the secrets of correct time-keeping were mastered.
+Nevertheless every little while a leap forward would be made, and one of
+these jumps came about 1340 when Peter Lightfoot, a monk, made for
+Glastonbury Abbey a clock with an escapement and regulator for securing
+equitable motion."
+
+Christopher, passing over the latter facts, seized upon the former.
+
+"Another monk!" cried he.
+
+The Scotchman nodded.
+
+"I told you it was the monks who packed their time the fullest and paid
+the greatest heed to the hours in those days."
+
+The boy did not answer immediately and when he did it was to venture
+politely:
+
+"I suppose _equitable motion_ was a fine thing."
+
+McPhearson peeped at him over the top of his glasses.
+
+"Have you any idea, laddie, what it was?" he interrogated.
+
+"Not the remotest," came frankly from Christopher.
+
+They both laughed.
+
+"Well, what I am talking about is our dead beat escapement."
+
+"And what might that be?"
+
+McPhearson became thoughtful.
+
+"Well, there are various methods of reaching the desired result, the
+chief aim of which is that at the end of each swing of the pendulum the
+escape teeth shall be made to stop until the pendulum starts to swing
+back again. This can be achieved by beveling both tooth and pallet until
+the teeth, instead of recoiling by the downward motion of the pallet,
+shall slip by and give the pallet a jolt onward, thereby keeping it in
+motion. Look here, and I'll show you what I mean. Even this small clock
+has an escapement that works after that plan."
+
+The boy rose and peered into the mysterious works of the clock.
+
+"Oh, I see now," he exclaimed. "That would help to make the beat more
+even, wouldn't it, and insure better time? And now what about Peter
+Lightfoot's clock? Of course it isn't in existence now?"
+
+"That clock had quite a history, son," was the old man's reply. "When
+the Reformation came and there was danger of its being destroyed, it was
+moved to Wells Cathedral, and there a part, at least, of the original
+structure still remains. In 1835, however, its works were found to be
+pretty well worn out (scant wonder, too) and therefore new works were
+put in and the dial was repaired. Evidently, long before, the clock had
+had at its base some revolving horseman which probably delighted the
+people of that time who were always pleased by automatic figures and
+scenes in pantomime. Many ancient clocks reflected this childish taste
+by having attached to them all sorts of figures representing the hours,
+days of the week, or feasts of the Church. Probably one reason for this
+was that as the education of the populace was too meager to give them
+much knowledge of numerals, and as they had but little business of
+importance to transact, they were far less interested in the time than
+in the dumb show gone through with by the little carved dolls.
+Furthermore, having no calendars, these figures served the purpose of
+telling them what day it was and reminding them of the church holidays.
+This explains why so many of the early clockmakers devoted such a degree
+of energy and skill to fashioning all sorts of pantomimes to be enacted
+by miniature figures at certain hours.
+
+"There was the Exeter clock, for instance, which Jacob Lovelace took
+thirty-four years to make, and which had thirteen different mechanisms.
+It did no end of ingenious things. Figures passed in procession at the
+arrival of the hour; tiny bell ringers rang miniature chimes. In fact,
+so many things went on that to see it was almost as good as a play. No
+wonder that when Jacob Lovelace died in 1716 it was called his
+masterpiece."
+
+"Wasn't there some sort of wonderful clock at Venice?" Christopher asked
+timidly.
+
+"Yes, indeed! There was a very celebrated seventeenth century clock
+there, with a blue and gold dial which had above it bronze figures that
+struck the hour on a bell. Moreover, when the noon of Ascension Day
+came, the people were reminded of this holy feast by seeing the Magi
+issue forth from a little door and how before the Virgin, who held in
+her arms the Christ Child. Every noontime for two weeks this scene was
+enacted, to the vast delight of a simple, childish people. This is the
+reason why most clocks of the period had only an hour hand and stressed
+events of the calendar rather than pointing the flight of the minutes."
+
+"It seems funny to think of clocks without minute hands, doesn't it?"
+Christopher mused.
+
+"Not so funny when you consider what life was at that time and how
+poorly equipped the public was in arithmetic. Many of them knew nothing
+of hours or quarter hours. But when the chimes in the village church
+played a different tune each day of the week--a tune they knew--they
+soon came to understand, for example, that the Blue Bells of Scotland
+meant Tuesday, and that Annie Laurie, perhaps, meant Thursday."
+
+"You do get horribly mixed on the days of the week when you have no
+calendar and nothing especial to do," asserted Christopher quickly. "I
+remember once when I was in the Maine woods with dad, we both got so
+confused we hadn't a notion what day it was."
+
+"Ah, then you have some understanding of the dilemma of your long-ago
+ancestors," smiled McPhearson, "and can comprehend why they were so
+thankful to have the cathedral clock set them right. Noblemen who owned
+outlying castles would send their servants to the village square, not
+only to find out the hour but to learn of the sun, moon, stars, and the
+religious feasts and fasts. For, you see, the majority of the clocks
+were put up by the clergy for the purpose not only of regulating their
+own monastic life, but to prod worshipers to remember the masses and
+prescribed feasts of the abbeys.
+
+"Later on when clocks and watches came into more general use, and the
+making of them was done by artisans instead of monks, time-keeping
+passed out of the hands of the Church (just as the printing of books did
+later on) and into the hands of guild members and manufacturers. It was
+when this change became effective that the character of clocks shifted
+very materially. The religious figures disappeared together with the
+elaborate pantomimes that accompanied them, and the clockmakers directed
+their energies to making the clock primarily a time-telling agency.
+However, all that was not accomplished in a minute, and when you go
+abroad, as you will some day, and see some of the quaint old clocks with
+their procession of Biblical figures, just remember how it was they
+happened to be made, and what interesting curiosities they are."
+
+"I'm afraid by the time I ever get to Europe there won't be any such
+clocks to be seen," sighed Christopher.
+
+"Oh, yes, there will! You will see, for example, the great clock of
+Straasburg. Not, to be sure, the original one, for that was made in
+1352; neither will you view its successor put up in the latter part of
+the sixteenth century. Both of those have long since disappeared. Still
+the third one, which succeeded them and is now well on to a hundred
+years old, is wonderful enough to excite your admiration. It was
+inaugurated October 2, 1842, and is one of the marvels of the Old World.
+Certainly it incidentally provides the people with all they could ask in
+the way of information and entertainment. On a level with the ground is
+a globe telling of the stars visible to the naked eye--their rising,
+setting, and passage over the meridian. Behind this is a calendar
+indicating the year, month, and day, together with all ecclesiastical
+feasts and holidays. Above these two is a gallery where allegorical
+figures passing from left to right symbolize the days of the week.
+
+"Apollo, drawn in his chariot by prancing horses, typifies Sunday;
+Monday we have Diana with her stag. Tuesday comes Mars, Wednesday
+Mercury, Thursday Jupiter, Friday we have the goddess Venus, and
+Saturday Saturn."
+
+"Some clock!" gasped Christopher.
+
+"Oh, that isn't half of it," protested McPhearson, "although it sounds
+amazing enough; there is yet more. Above all these gods and goddesses is
+a clock dial showing ordinary time; a contrivance that gives the
+movements of the planets; and a globe indicating the phases of the moon.
+Nor have we reached the end of the marvels yet. Still higher up are
+figures to symbolize childhood, youth, manhood, and old age, each of
+which strikes one of the quarter hours. Beside the ordinary clock dial
+you will see a moving figure that strikes with its scepter the first
+note of each quarter hour, while at the same time a figure opposite it
+turns an hourglass to mark the complete passing of the hour."
+
+"Gee!"
+
+"Oh, don't imagine you are through with this marvelous clock yet. There
+is in addition a grim statuette of death which is to remind man of his
+frailty and the shortness of his days; this strikes each hour with a
+bone. It is at the very top that we get the touch of more modern
+Christianity in a procession of the twelve apostles, who at noon pass
+before a figure of Christ, bowing at his feet, while he makes the sign
+of the cross in response, and it is at this instant that the tragic
+denial of Peter is portrayed by a cock, which from its perch on one of
+the turrets, flaps its wings and crows three times."
+
+"Why, it would almost be worth a trip to Europe to see such a wonder!"
+burst out Christopher.
+
+"Almost. You could also see the clock at Berne while you were about
+it--a clever mechanism made by the Swiss in 1527. Berne, as you
+doubtless know, if you have faithfully studied your geography, took its
+name from the word _baeren_, meaning bears; and you know, too, how it
+came about that the Swiss selected that name for it. In all the shops
+you will find large and small bears for sale, all carved from wood and
+converted to every imaginable purpose."
+
+"And the clock--has it bears too?"
+
+"It certainly has. Three minutes before the hour a cock gives warning of
+the time by crowing and flapping its carved wings. Then out comes a
+procession of bears that march solemnly round a bearded Father Time,
+whereupon the cock crows again, and a jester, hammer in hand, strikes a
+bell. At the sound the bearded old man raises his sceptre, opens his
+mouth, and turns an hourglass. And at each stroke of the bell a bear
+nods his head. All this done, the cock crows again and the fantastic
+pantomime is finished.
+
+"You therefore can see how it came about that when the nobles and the
+rich began to wish to have clocks of their own, in order to save the
+trouble of sending their servants to the public square to find out all
+the big clocks had to tell, clockmakers felt they must give them at
+least some of the things to which they had become accustomed, and
+therefore made clocks showing the sun, moon, stars, or tides, or those
+that would play tunes on miniature chimes of six or eight bells. It was
+all a relic of the past. Possibly, too, clockmakers were curious to see
+what they could do in more limited space. Be this as it may, musical
+clocks died hard. The old bracket clock we have just sent home, you will
+recall, played seven different tunes. Purchasers liked the notion of
+having music to mark the hours. Later on, however, when they became
+better educated, the frivolous little tinkling jigs and dances gave
+place to a more dignified and sonorous striking of a single rich-toned
+bell, or a group of such bells, and resulted in the Westminster chimes
+or others not unlike them."
+
+"The little tunes were mighty jolly though," observed Christopher, with
+evident regret.
+
+"Very jolly indeed. Nevertheless one tired of them sooner than of the
+graver notes. I think I told you how, when Richard Parsons' clock made
+its first appearance here in the shop, everybody within hearing distance
+dropped his work and came running to listen to its music. The men were
+eager as children. For days they watched the time so to be sure not to
+miss nine, twelve, and three o'clock. Then the novelty wore off, and the
+audience gradually diminished."
+
+"I should never be tired of listening," Christopher announced.
+
+"Nor I. Perhaps, though, that is because the quaintness of the themes
+appeals to us more than does the tone of the bells themselves, for their
+cadence is, you must admit, a bit thin and suggestive of a music box."
+
+"Maybe. But I like music boxes."
+
+"In that case, Richard Parsons' music cannot fail to please you. Who
+knows but you may be owning one of these bracket clocks of your own some
+day? You better begin to save up your pennies."
+
+"It would take too many, I'm afraid."
+
+"I grant that it would take quite a few."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+AN EXCURSION
+
+
+Another week passed and still no tidings of the stolen diamonds came.
+The inspector, to be sure, asserted with high confidence that he had
+clews but apparently they were tangled tracks reaching too far away to
+bring immediate results; neither would he confide what they were.
+Instead he shook his head sagely, cautioned patience, and merely
+observed he was giving the culprits plenty of rope.
+
+This information was disheartening enough to Mr. Burton, his partner,
+and Christopher himself, but to the unfortunate Hollings it was
+well-nigh exasperating.
+
+"Anybody'd think we had half a century to land those thieves," snarled
+he. "Why, they have had almost time enough to get to Holland or Siam,
+and dispose of their loot. I can't see what the police are thinking of
+not to round them up quicker than this. Since they have a description of
+the men and can even call them by names there is no excuse for
+them--none."
+
+"My father seems to think the men at headquarters know what they are
+about," Christopher said, making an attempt to soothe the ire of the
+distressed clerk.
+
+"Maybe they do," sighed Hollings. "I hope so." Nevertheless, there was
+no spontaneity in his optimism.
+
+Thus the days went along and Christopher came to find in them great
+contentment. Perhaps his serenity was due in part to the fact that the
+weakness of his eyes shut him out so completely from almost every other
+diversion that he welcomed any sort of companionship with
+disproportionate appreciation. He could not read, he could not write, he
+could go neither to the theater nor the movies. And while he thus halted
+and marked time, the world and everybody in it marched along without
+giving him a thought. What marvel, therefore, that he attached himself
+eagerly to any person who was kind and willing to bother with him?
+
+It had not taken him long to sift out those who tolerated him from
+motives of pity or policy and those who really liked him, and he was not
+a little proud to class in the latter group both Mr. Rhinehart and the
+Scotchman, McPhearson. Mr. Rhinehart not only had boys of his own but
+was in addition enough of a boy himself to be dowered with a keen
+sympathy and understanding of them.
+
+McPhearson, on the other hand, was a solitary creature whose forlornity
+prompted him to take with gladness any hand stretched out to him. He
+lived alone in dingy bachelor quarters, where, save for his books and
+his flute, he had few companions. Therefore he came to look forward to
+Christopher's daily visits with an even greater degree of anticipation
+than did the lad himself.
+
+"I've got to go out to-day," was his greeting when Christopher made his
+appearance on a cold December morning.
+
+The boy's face fell.
+
+"What do you say to coming with me? Would your father be willing?"
+
+"Oh, he wouldn't care. Where are you going?"
+
+"Out to Morningside Drive to look at a clock that they want me to see."
+
+"When are you leaving?"
+
+"Right away. I was waiting a second or two to see if you'd put in an
+appearance."
+
+"That was awfully good of you. I'll get my coat."
+
+"You'd better ask your father."
+
+"Don't worry. He'll think it's all right."
+
+"Still, I'd rather you asked him."
+
+"If it will make you any easier in your mind, I will. It won't take a
+second."
+
+Off rushed Christopher, only to return breathless a moment or two later.
+
+"Dad says I can go as long as it's with you. And he told me to tell you
+we needn't rush the trip. Here's money for our fares."
+
+Christopher extended a fresh new bill.
+
+"Pooh! Pooh! Nonsense!" growled McPhearson. "We'll not need that. I've
+money enough. Besides, we're only going in the bus."
+
+"No matter. Dad said--"
+
+"Come along," interrupted the Scotchman, catching up his bag of tools
+and cutting short further discussion. "If we stand here arguing we shall
+never get off at all."
+
+Docilely Christopher followed him into the street where amid surging
+crowds they hailed the bus and began rolling up the avenue.
+
+"New York couldn't get along very well without clocks, could it?"
+commented Christopher, as he looked down upon the maelstrom of hurrying
+humanity.
+
+"Not very well," laughed his companion. "I suppose the majority of this
+rushing mob is aiming to arrive somewhere at a specified time. There are
+probably men with business engagements; women with dressmakers' and
+dentists' appointments; students hastening to lectures; people going for
+trains and cars. You may be reasonably certain it is the clock that is
+spurring them forward. Earlier in the day the throngs would have been
+denser than this, for then we should have seen the workers who pour into
+the city every morning. As it is there are quite enough of them. So it
+goes from dawn until dusk. Everybody moves on schedule and it is
+precisely because the day is cut up into this checkerboard of hours that
+we can fit our work and play together and accomplish so much in it."
+
+"It doesn't leave us much time for play," suggested Christopher
+mischievously.
+
+"No, I am afraid it doesn't--not enough time. Somehow the proportions
+have become distorted. We consider play almost a waste of time and with
+life short as it is, to fool time away has become little short of a sin.
+Certainly to waste another person's time is criminal--the actual
+stealing of a valuable commodity that can never be replaced."
+
+"People who are late never seem to consider themselves thieves," grinned
+Christopher.
+
+"They ought to," McPhearson answered solemnly. "Everybody's time has a
+money equivalent in these days. If a man keeps me waiting or talks my
+time away, he robs me of five or ten or twenty dollars, according to the
+length of the interval he has kept me from my work."
+
+"Great Scot!" exclaimed the boy in consternation. "At that rate I've run
+up a whale of a bill."
+
+McPhearson laughed at the ejaculation.
+
+"Cheer up, son! I shall not attach your bank account yet," said he. "You
+see, when I talk to you I can work at the same time, which puts quite a
+different phase on the matter; and when I cannot both work and talk, why
+I stop talking. But if I were with some one else it might be my work
+that would have to stop, and my talk go on, and that would make all the
+difference."
+
+"Sure!"
+
+"It is useless for us to kick against the rush of the age in which we
+live," continued McPhearson. "We are here and must move with the tide.
+But if we had been born a few hundred years ago, one day would have been
+so like another that to waste moments or even hours would not have
+greatly mattered. In fact, people expected to waste time and wait about
+for nearly everything they wanted. Clothing was made by hand and it took
+a long time to make it. Even the cloth was spun at home after the day's
+work was finished, and there was nothing else to do. When you traveled,
+roads were poor and the stage-coaches obliged to halt at intervals for
+fresh horses. In the meantime you stopped at an inn and hung about,
+waiting not only for your own dinner but until the drivers and horses
+had had theirs. Afterward more precious moments were consumed in
+harnessing up the new steeds and getting once more under way. Then if no
+wheels came off, or reins broke, or horses stumbled, not to mention
+possible onslaughts of highwaymen who beset unfrequented districts, you
+eventually arrived at your destination."
+
+"At that rate I should never expect to get anywhere," announced
+Christopher.
+
+"All living proceeded at that ratio or even a slower one, for if you
+could not afford coach fare you _walked_ to where you were going.
+Nevertheless, in spite of the defects of the period, it was considered a
+very comfortable era, and people were well content with it. Fortunately
+nobody wished to travel very extensively, for as knowledge of geography
+was scant they did not know there was anywhere to go. Hence they
+cheerfully remained in the spot where they happened to be born or within
+a short radius of it.
+
+"About the great estates hung swarms of retainers who in times of peace
+had little to do. Some of these helped dress the venison brought in from
+the hunt, some dragged in logs for the fires, some cared for the horses;
+and with all that there were several times as many retainers as there
+were duties. Therefore it was unavoidable that many men were idle the
+greater part of the day. Indeed they had not resources enough to be
+anything else, for scarce a one of them had any education. They could
+neither read nor write, and in many cases, their masters could do no
+better. The bare fact that a nobleman sent his servant to the public
+square to find out what time it was proves that such little things as
+quarter or half hours did not concern them much.
+
+"Ladies worked tapestries, danced and sang their days away; gossiped
+with one another or quarreled with their maids, while the gentlemen of
+the household hunted, hung about the court, loitered at the inn or rowed
+on the river. For such an existence as that one did not need to slice
+his time up into very fine pieces. An idle, leisurely life it was, with
+little cause for haste. What wonder the clocks had no minute hands when
+even hours were of such minor importance?"
+
+The bus halted with a jerk, to escape running over an abnormally daring
+pedestrian.
+
+"A second made some difference to him," said Christopher, when once more
+the vehicle was in motion.
+
+"All the difference between being in this world and out of it," was the
+terse reply. "He'd better have lost a minute rather than take a chance
+like that. But, alas, we have got into the habit of thinking we cannot
+stop for anything. From morning to night we race about as if the bogey
+man were at our heels. Sometimes I wish myself in the forest of Arden,
+where there were no clocks."
+
+"You'd have nothing to repair there, certainly."
+
+"I know it. And before a week was out I should be the most miserable of
+mortals, in consequence," retorted the Scotchman quickly. "No, no! It is
+better to be perched up here on a bus whizzing to doctor a balky old
+clock than to be idle day in and day out."
+
+"Where is the balky old clock you mention?" Christopher inquired.
+
+"In a fine mansion not far from here," replied McPhearson. "A rich old
+gentleman who is a clock collector lives there all alone with enough
+servants to man a warship. You may be sure our shoe leather will not be
+wasted, for none of his clocks are ever out of commission because of
+neglect or foolish handling."
+
+Signaling the bus, the travelers descended into the street and walked a
+few blocks.
+
+"You are sure your old gentleman won't mind my coming with you?"
+murmured Christopher, as they neared the house.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Hawley won't mind. I have been coming here for years. He never
+lets anybody else touch his clocks. If he is at home, he will probably
+be proud as a peacock to show you his treasures; and if he isn't you can
+look about by yourself. He never minds what I do."
+
+On investigation, however, it proved that Mr. Hawley was not at home.
+
+"He done gone to some board meeting this morning," explained the colored
+butler. "And sorry enough he'll be to miss you too, Mr. McPhearson, for
+he always likes havin' a talk with you."
+
+"Which clock is it this time, Ebenezer?"
+
+"Number Seventeen, sir," answered the darky gravely. "She done been
+kickin' up something vexatious. She absumlutely won't strike with the
+others--absumlutely won't! After the rest of 'em are through, in she
+comes a minute late, chiming away on her own hook, all independent
+like, as if she was runnin' the world. You know what that means. Mr.
+Hawley, sir, he won't stand for no nonsense like that--not for a second.
+If there's any strikin' to be done round here, or chimin' either, it's
+got to be done in chorus or not at all. Ain't he been well-nigh a year
+trainin' those clocks? We've got 'em down now almighty fine too--'cept
+for Number Seventeen."
+
+"I'll have a look at her."
+
+"Do, sir! She's on the stairway, you know, halfway up."
+
+"Oh, I remember her, although I don't believe I could give her number
+offhand."
+
+"I could. I could recite the numbers of them clocks frontways an'
+backways," answered Ebenezer. "You could, too, if you had 'em to wind."
+
+"Oh, you wind them now, do you?"
+
+"I certainly do!" affirmed the negro, with no small degree of pride.
+"Mr. Hawley's been a long time comin' to it, but at last he's let me.
+Yes, sir! I wind 'em, every one."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"Yes. You see, Mr. Hawley ain't so young as he was, an' mor'n that, he's
+got rheumatism in his arm. So one mornin' he say to me 'Ebenezer,' he
+say, 'I reckon you'll have to take on the windin' up. My hand is gettin'
+shaky.' Well, sir, had he given me the management of a railroad I
+couldn't have been prouder. That's why, when Seventeen begun branchin'
+out for herself, I was so 'specially upset. I wondered what I'd done to
+her."
+
+"We'll look and see," McPhearson smiled. "Very likely she's just taken
+a whim, Ebenezer."
+
+"I hope so--I do indeed, sir."
+
+Following the old butler, Christopher and the Scotchman ascended the
+stairs until they came to a niche where stood the clock in question.
+
+It was perhaps four feet tall--an exact replica of a long-case clock.
+
+"I never saw such a little grandfather's clock as that," commented
+Christopher.
+
+"It is a bracelet clock of early Colonial make," McPhearson explained.
+"Many of them were made in Massachusetts in the early days."
+
+"And its works are like the big ones?"
+
+"Practically, yes. This one, as you see, was made by John Bailey of
+Hanover, a small town on Cape Cod. Probably its date is about 1812 or
+1815."
+
+"It is over a hundred years old already."
+
+"Yes. And considering it is, don't you think, Ebenezer, it has earned
+the right to a little independence?" McPhearson inquired of the darky, a
+twinkle in his eye.
+
+But Ebenezer shook his head.
+
+"Mr. Hawley done say no clock can go strikin' by herself--no matter how
+old she is," Ebenezer asserted, without hint of a smile. "He say there's
+no excuse for it--no excuse!"
+
+McPhearson opened the door and glanced inside.
+
+"Can you see anything wrong, sir?" queried the old butler eagerly.
+
+"Not yet. I've got to make a more thorough examination."
+
+"Likely you have. But whatever's the matter, you'll find it--I know
+that. I never see such a man for clocks as you in all my born days; an'
+the master, he say the same. 'Mr. McPhearson will soon get Seventeen
+into line,' he says, an' I know you will, sir. Don't you always?"
+
+In the meantime Christopher had peeped inside the clock.
+
+"Why, look at the great lead weight!" ejaculated he.
+
+"Yes. Many old clocks had weights such as this, which were pulled up
+when the clock was wound and gradually dropped as the clock ran down.
+Sometimes a stone was used; sometimes even a pail of small stones."
+
+"But where were springs and pendulums?" gasped the astonished boy.
+
+"Springs came a good deal later. Even pendulums were not introduced in
+any practical form until 1657. Up to that time a balance did the work.
+The advent of the pendulum, invented probably by Christian Huygens, a
+Dutch mathematician, opened up no end of complications for the early
+clockmakers. In the first place they could not decide where to put this
+new article. Some placed the pendulum at the front of their clock,
+letting it dangle down across the face; others tried to conceal it by
+hanging it outside the back. Still others made a dial that would project
+enough at either side to cover it up.
+
+"Nor did the novel innovation of the pendulum do much good at first,
+although theoretically makers of clocks conceded pendulums to be a
+scientific advance over older methods. Of course the theory of the
+pendulum had been for a long time in the minds of many thoughtful
+persons. Galileo had seized on its principle when observing the swinging
+of lanterns in the church at Pisa, and had written a scientific treatise
+on it. But to get an idea is one thing and to apply it is quite another.
+Pendulums were very complicated mechanisms. In the first place the
+length of the pendulum decides, you see, the rate of the clock's
+vibration; a short one resulting in a quick, nervous tick; and a long
+one in a slow, quiet one. Therefore pendulums meant more even vibration
+and more accurate time-keeping, and it was just when makers were
+rejoicing over these advantages that it was discovered the temperature
+of the place in which a clock stood affected the rod the bob hung on and
+threw the whole timepiece out of adjustment. Here was a pretty kettle of
+fish! A hot room, for example, would expand the rod and lengthen it."
+
+"And make the clock tick slower," put in Christopher eagerly.
+
+"Precisely."
+
+"Then the clock would go slower sometimes than others."
+
+"Exactly that! The variation was not great, of course, and we now have
+learned how to meet it by lengthening or shortening the pendulum by
+means of a screw placed near the bob. Nevertheless the variation is
+there. A common wire pendulum will vary approximately a minute a week; a
+brass rod will, on the other hand, vary that same minute in five days
+instead of seven. Wood, a material showing less change than metal, will
+vary only a minute in three weeks.
+
+"All this we have learned to make allowance for. But the poor old
+clockmakers had to gather these facts by long and tiresome experiment.
+At length brass pendulums which, they discovered, made the most trouble,
+were replaced by those of iron or lead which, being of softer material,
+expanded and contracted more readily. In our day you will sometimes see
+a very finely adjusted astronomical clock whose pendulum terminates in a
+hollow glass or iron receptacle filled with mercury, instead of the
+usual metal bob."
+
+"There are two of them at the store."
+
+"To be sure there are! For the moment I had forgotten that."
+
+"And all this time while clockmakers were fussing round about bobs and
+pendulums, did the people have to keep on running to the cathedral or
+the public square to find out what time it was?"
+
+"No, indeed! By 1600 you could buy for a moderate sum a clock to use at
+home. Not that it was a very accurate timekeeper. Nevertheless it gave a
+fair idea of the hour, which was all that was demanded of it," laughed
+McPhearson, busying himself with his screwdriver.
+
+"What sort of clocks were the first ones?"
+
+"They were not like ours, you must remember that. There was, for
+instance, the bird-case clock, a small chased or perforated brass affair
+from four to five inches square, and named because its shape suggested a
+cage for birds. I spoke of it before. Then there was the lantern clock.
+Both these varieties were made to hang on the wall and were wound by
+pulling down the weights that dangled from them."
+
+"They had no springs, pendulums or things?" questioned Christopher
+wonderingly.
+
+"That was before the days of springs. This particular type of clock,
+however, had a pendulum; but it was only a pendulum driven by weights
+showing the pendulum idea in its crudest form. Not until the long-case
+(or grandfather) clock made its advent into England did the pendulum,
+scientifically applied, come into being; and before that era many years
+intervened during which bracket clocks held the center of the stage."
+
+"Clocks like Richard Parsons'!" interrupted Christopher triumphantly.
+
+"Yes, the very same. These were better yet because they had no weights
+hanging down and so could be put on a table, a shelf, or mantelpiece. In
+the meantime, somewhere about the year 1500, a Nurenburg locksmith named
+Peter Henlien had made a clock so small that it could be carried in
+one's pocket--if that pocket was of pretty ample size. It had works of
+iron, one hand, and no crystal, and was, to be sure, both thick and
+clumsy, but it boasted one amazing feature. Since it was too small to
+depend on weights, it contained a coiled mainspring--something entirely
+new to the clockmaking world. Now this article fashioned by Peter
+Henlien cannot be termed a watch as we know watches; but still it was
+the nearest approach to one that had yet been produced. The fact that
+this egg-shaped concoction was no great timekeeper was a secondary
+matter. The important thing was that a small, compact article that would
+keep some sort of time had been made, and a coiled mainspring was inside
+it."
+
+"How funny to have a blacksmith--or rather a locksmith, making a watch!"
+
+"Not at all. Records show that a great many of the best clockmakers
+belonging to the Clockmakers' Company were, or had formerly been,
+blacksmiths."
+
+"But it seems odd, doesn't it?" mused Christopher. "And did everybody
+start making watches after this queer article of Peter Henlien's was
+produced?"
+
+"Not very extensively. Indeed, there was nothing very appealing or
+attractive in Peter Henlien's watch. Moreover, since such objects failed
+to keep good time, what earthly inducement was there for owning one?
+Nevertheless horologers themselves were not discouraged. They kept right
+on trying to turn out something better, and in 1525 Jacob Zech, a Swiss
+mechanic from Prague, hit on a remedy to prevent these crude watches
+from running fast when first wound up and slower when they began to run
+down. In other words he discovered something that would equalize the
+mechanism."
+
+"And what was that?"
+
+"A fusee."
+
+"I'm afraid that doesn't help me much," was Christopher's rueful plaint.
+
+"Well, a fusee was a short cone having a spiral groove round it, with a
+cord or chain wound to the groove and fastened at the big end of the
+cone. It was a simple device but it did the work. The shaft of the fusee
+was attached to the large wheel that moved the gears, and the other end
+of the cord was fastened to the mainspring barrel. Therefore as the
+mainspring slowly turned the barrel, it gradually uncoiled the cord from
+the fusee, making it turn and as soon as it turned, the wheels had to
+turn too, and the watch began to go. Since from the very start the cord
+unwound from the small end of the cone where the leverage was least, and
+as the force of the mainspring decreased it, the leverage of the cord
+strengthened in the same proportion. So you see, the power which turned
+the wheels was constantly the same. Do not dream, however, this result
+was reached all in a minute. The crude fusee of Zech had to be perfected
+by Gruet, another Swiss clockmaker, and by still others. Nevertheless
+the scheme did work and caused a revolution in clock and watch making.
+There was now some hope that ultimately timepieces would furnish correct
+time, which after all is, I suppose, the only excuse a clock has for
+being."
+
+McPhearson brought from his bag a small copper oil can.
+
+"Wants oilin', does she?" interpolated the butler, who had been standing
+anxiously near by.
+
+"A drop won't hurt her."
+
+"Much wrong with her, sir?"
+
+"Next to nothing, Ebenezer. She just needed a little readjusting and
+tightening up."
+
+"Praise de Lord! Then you're most through, sir."
+
+"Pretty near."
+
+"I'm clean afraid Mr. Hawley won't get back before you finish."
+
+"I'm not gone yet."
+
+"Oh, I ain't in any hurry to shoo you out, Mr. McPhearson," declared the
+darky hurriedly. "No, indeed, sir. I could listen to you talk all day."
+
+"I forgot you were listening, Ebenezer."
+
+"Listening? 'Deed an' I was listenin'! My two ears was pricked up like a
+rabbit's."
+
+The clockmaker flushed and smiled.
+
+"They's silver to clean; an' brasses to polish, an' I dunno what--"
+continued the butler, "but I'm lettin' 'em all lie 'til by an' by--I's
+improvin' my mind--I is!"
+
+"So am I," rejoined Christopher, laughing.
+
+"I seem to be furnishing a lecture free of charge to a very select
+audience," the Scotchman returned drily; "and having once started, I
+suppose I may as well finish it. You can testify that at least I have
+not been idle while talking.
+
+"Nor was the era, of which I have been speaking, an idle one. Like Rip
+Van Winkle, it began slowly to awaken from its long sleep and become
+alert. Printing was invented and the Bible, along with other books,
+gradually reached the hands of the common people. In the meantime,
+Columbus had made his voyage to America and returned with tales of new
+lands, stimulating in others a spirit of adventure. The recently evolved
+compass, as well as the fact that larger and more staunch ships were
+now to be had, lured persons previously shy of the sea to voyages of
+discovery. On every hand new ideas were coming to light. In the clock
+world somebody began making screws to replace the primitive little pins
+and rivets hitherto employed to fasten wheels and dials in place; glass
+came into more general use, and by 1600 crystals began to be quite
+generally in evidence; and the appearance of the minute hand gave
+evidence that the universe was a busier place and short intervals of
+time becoming of greater worth. But although the sale of clocks
+increased, watches were not yet in general use. They were too much of a
+luxury. People therefore consulted their clocks (if they were lucky
+enough to have them); hied them to the village square if not; or
+depended upon their sundials of which there were still many in use.
+Watchmen also went about the streets crying the hours.
+
+"The rich, to be sure, purchased watches, but they bought them more for
+ornaments than for use. Those who could afford it frequently owned
+several, wearing them around their necks on chains or ribbons, and
+displaying a different one to suit either their costume or their fancy."
+
+"But weren't those old egg-shaped watches heavy and ugly?" asked
+Christopher.
+
+"Oh, by this time watches had got far beyond that original design and
+had now become monuments to the goldsmith's art, being small and
+fashioned in every imaginable design. I regret to say that a great
+portion of the labor went into the cases, which were beautifully made
+by hand. There were flowers with watches concealed in their centers;
+baskets of tiny fruits, hearts, animals, death's-heads--every form that
+was novel or original. Some cases had on their covers miniatures set in
+jewels; and there were cases of leather studded with decorations in nail
+heads. In every instance it was the outside of the watch that interested
+both purchaser and goldsmith--not the inside. Can you wonder, therefore,
+that the watch deteriorated into being a mere toy and ornament?"
+
+"How could people be so ridiculous!" exclaimed Christopher with scorn.
+
+"It would have been ridiculous had the art of making watches stopped
+there," McPhearson acquiesced. "But fortunately, if the public was
+content with such pretty, silly toy affairs, the horologers were not.
+Patiently they continued the struggle to make timepieces better; and to
+prove that all this nonsense about pretty watches was not without value,
+I will tell you that it was while making a white enamel base on which to
+paint a miniature that some clever person bethought him how nice a watch
+face of white enamel would be with black figures printed upon it."
+
+"It is never all loss without some gain, is it?" smiled Christopher.
+"And clocks?"
+
+"Clocks, too, were sharing the general improvement," answered
+McPhearson. "The old system of the balance with its accompanying weights
+and chains had passed, and the pendulum, now becoming less of a puzzle,
+was coming into vogue. Makers had, however, been convinced by this time
+that pendulums did not look well hanging down across the faces of
+clocks, and so they now put them at the back, their swingings being
+frequently concealed by projecting dials. So you see, the world was
+moving on."
+
+As he concluded this speech, McPhearson took off his working glasses,
+substituted for them another pair, and began packing up his tools.
+
+"There!" exclaimed he to Ebenezer, "I think you will find Seventeen will
+do better after this. Don't blame the poor thing. It wasn't her fault."
+
+"I'm glad to hear you say so, sir," returned the butler with a broad
+smile. "I always did like that clock."
+
+"The others, you say, are all right."
+
+"Mostly, sir. Number Fifteen lagged a little and kept the master
+botherin' for a while, but she's catchin' up now. I wouldn't dare have
+you touch her 'cause she's runnin' too close to be disturbed."
+
+"Then I'll go along. Give my respects to Mr. Hawley, Ebenezer."
+
+"I will, sir," and the butler let his visitors out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+AN ADVENTURE
+
+
+As they went out to board a returning bus, Christopher remarked
+regretfully:
+
+"I'd have given a cent to see the rest of those clocks."
+
+"What clocks?" inquired McPhearson with surprise.
+
+"Why, Mr. Hawley's."
+
+The Scotchman halted abruptly in the middle of the sidewalk.
+
+"My goodness!" ejaculated he. "I never thought of it! Why under the sun
+didn't you speak up, laddie?"
+
+"I didn't like to," replied the boy with diffidence. "I was afraid it
+might bother somebody."
+
+"Not an atom. On the contrary Ebenezer would have been proud as a
+peacock to show them off. You could have been wandering round with him
+while I was fussing over Seventeen as well as not. It's a pity."
+
+So genuine was the regret in the clockmaker's tone that Christopher
+hastened to add:
+
+"Oh, it's all right, Mr. McPhearson. Please don't think of it again. I
+oughtn't to have mentioned it. It doesn't really matter, you know."
+
+Still his companion was not satisfied.
+
+"We might go back," suggested he.
+
+"No, no! It will make you late at the store. Maybe you'll be going up
+there again some other day and can take me along."
+
+"I'm afraid not," replied McPhearson, ruefully. "At least I hope not. If
+Seventeen behaves herself as I expect she will, I shall not be needed.
+Well! Well! I am sorry. It wasn't very thoughtful of me."
+
+They walked on and hailing a bus climbed aboard it.
+
+The vehicle was crowded and they made their way in with difficulty,
+jostling aside its closely packed occupants as they entered.
+
+"Lots of these people will be leaving at the next stop," McPhearson
+remarked. "They always do."
+
+The prediction was true. At the next corner the passengers poured out,
+leaving the seats only thinly filled.
+
+As Christopher sank into a seat and drew a long breath of relief his eye
+wandered idly over those sitting near him, and a stranger opposite
+arrested his attention.
+
+    [Illustration: What was it that rendered the figure so familiar?
+     _Page_ 103.]
+
+He was a working man shabbily clothed, and wearing a dingy brown ulster
+and slouch hat. Between his feet was a much worn leather bag which
+obviously contained tools. His hair was gray and so was the grizzled
+beard that partially concealed his features. But it was none of these
+that held the boy's attention. Something in the way the fellow's collar
+was pulled up and his hat pulled down; something in the gesture with
+which he moved his hands to turn his paper aroused a vague memory.
+Fascinated, the lad watched. What was it that rendered the figure so
+familiar? He had never seen the man before in his life--he was certain
+of that. And yet, had he? And if so, where? What was the haunting
+association that held him spellbound and made it impossible for him to
+remove his gaze from this person whose features were almost entirely
+screened from view behind the outspread pages of the morning _Herald_?
+
+Christopher looked away. Of course he didn't know the fellow. Why stare
+at him? But do what he would, back came his gaze to the same
+brown-ulstered traveler.
+
+Then the bus lurched, stopped suddenly, and he knew! The man had lowered
+his paper, and as he turned his head to look out, the boy saw on his
+right cheek, almost concealed by hat and whiskers, a telltale scar.
+
+The shock of the discovery was so great that it was with difficulty
+Chris checked a cry of surprise. Yes, it was the hero of the ring
+adventure--there could be no possible doubt of it. And yet, after all,
+was it? This person's hair was white and his whiskers too; he was shabby
+and wore spectacles. The lad began to doubt the conclusion to which he
+had leaped.
+
+It couldn't be Stuart! A diamond robber would not be journeying about in
+an electric bus in broad daylight. Such a notion was absurd. Probably it
+was merely a mannerism that had suggested him.
+
+Nevertheless Christopher continued to regard him attentively, studying
+the white hand with its long, slender fingers. It was a very clean hand
+for such a poorly dressed individual to boast. It did not look at all in
+keeping with the clumsy boots, the frayed trousers, the worn ulster, the
+battered satchel. It did not appear ever to have done a stroke of work
+in its life.
+
+Suppose the hand was genuine, and the rest only a disguise? Suppose in
+reality this was Stuart, the criminal for whom both the Chicago and New
+York police were searching? Oh, it wasn't likely--it could not be
+likely. Why should a boy of his age hope to track down a thief when
+agencies such as these had failed? It was preposterous.
+
+Yet, notwithstanding the argument, the doubt would persist. What if,
+after all, this was Stuart? Yet if it were, what should he do?
+
+If he began to whisper his suspicious to McPhearson, the thief might
+overhear and, put on his guard, leave the vehicle; and should he call
+the conductor to his aid, the man would in all probability be unwilling
+to believe such a tale and refuse to act. Moreover, perhaps he had no
+authority to do so anyway.
+
+Poor Christopher! His heart beat until it seemed as if the stranger
+opposite must hear its throbbing and take warning. If only it were
+possible to alight from the bus without exciting attention, maybe he and
+McPhearson could get an officer. He sadly wanted somebody's help and
+advice. The adventure was one he felt to be too big for him to handle
+alone.
+
+Nevertheless were he even to suggest leaving the car he knew his
+companion would not only be surprised but would instantly voice aloud
+his consternation, and then, of course, the man behind the newspaper
+would hear.
+
+Still, something must be done. The bus was whizzing on down the avenue,
+and at any moment his prey might take flight.
+
+A mad resolve formed itself in his mind.
+
+"I think we'll have to get out," he said suddenly. "I don't feel well."
+
+McPhearson wheeled on him, amazed.
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"My--my--breakfast, I guess. Can you stop the car?"
+
+"Do you mean you want to get out right here?"
+
+"Yes. I'm dizzy. If I can get some air--"
+
+"Not going to faint away, are you?" queried the Scotchman in
+consternation.
+
+"I--no--I--guess not."
+
+The kind old clockmaker slipped an arm about his shoulders.
+
+"We'll get out at the next stop, sonny. Too bad you feel mean. It's
+probably the lurching and bumping of this infernal vehicle. You'll be
+all right when you get outside."
+
+Without attracting anything more than passing notice, they found
+themselves in the street and saw the bus disappear down the avenue.
+
+"Feel better?" interrogated McPhearson, anxiously.
+
+"I'm all right. There's not a thing the matter with me. The trouble is
+that the man opposite us was the chap who pinched that ring from
+Hollings."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Pretty sure. At any rate, it's worth tipping off headquarters. Where's
+there a telephone?"
+
+"There's a drug store just across the street, Christopher. But hold on!
+What do you mean to do?"
+
+The Scotchman's mind was at best a slow-moving machine, and now it
+appeared to be too stunned to move at all. Sensing that explanation and
+argument would delay him, Christopher dashed ahead, the clockmaker
+panting at his heels.
+
+Fortunately he knew the number, for he had talked with the inspector
+before. Fortunately, too, he had a nickel in his pocket. Therefore he
+called headquarters, admonishing the operator to make haste.
+
+A second later a reply came singing over the wire.
+
+"Is Mr. Corrigan, the inspector, there?"
+
+"Just gone out."
+
+"Is Davis, his assistant, in?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Rush him here. I want to speak to him."
+
+"Who shall I--"
+
+"No matter who. Get him here quick."
+
+There must have been something in the tone that carried a command, for
+almost immediately a weak, panting voice answered:
+
+"This--is--Davis, sir."
+
+"I'm Christopher Burton, the son of--"
+
+"Yes, sir, I get it."
+
+"I've left at the corner of Fifth Avenue and West Fifty-seventh Street a
+bus numbered 1079 that's on its way down town; in it was a man that
+looked like Stuart. Know who I mean?"
+
+"Jove! You bet I do! Well?"
+
+"He was togged out in an old brown ulster, worn trousers, and boots that
+were all splashed with plaster or paint, and he had white hair, a white
+beard, a slouch hat, and a bag. It may not be he at all, you know; but
+his hands--say--hello--hello--Davis--hello--the darn operator's cut me
+off."
+
+"Maybe not. More likely Davis hung up the 'phone."
+
+"But I wasn't through," declared the boy indignantly.
+
+"He'd got all he wanted, I imagine, and had to get to work."
+
+"Perhaps so." Christopher, however, was not satisfied.
+
+Moreover, now that the excitement of the incident was over and he began
+to look back on what he had done, it seemed madness. What right had he
+to turn the whole police force of the city of New York loose on a poor
+old working man, solely because his hands happened to be white! It was
+audacious. A pretty kind of a fool he'd feel if he had started them off
+on a false scent! They would not thank him. He had fumbled the affair
+from the beginning, and doubtless was continuing to fumble it.
+
+All the elation died in his face, and noticing this, McPhearson, who
+loitered in the meantime at the door of the telephone booth, remarked:
+
+"What's the trouble, son?"
+
+"If I was only _sure_ it was Stuart."
+
+"That's what I was trying to tell you, laddie, when you ran pell-mell in
+here to call the police. You ought to have made sure before you gave the
+information."
+
+"But how could I?" retorted Christopher irritably. "I couldn't go up to
+the man and ask him politely whether he was the burglar who took a
+diamond ring from my father's shop, could I?"
+
+The absurdity of the question brought back his good humor.
+
+"No. I grant that," McPhearson agreed. "Still you might have proceeded
+with a grain less speed. I always think an action can bear considering."
+
+"But all actions can't be considered," was the crisp reply. Again an
+edge of sharpness had crept into the lad's voice.
+
+"Well, well. Maybe no harm's done," the clockmaker hastened to say
+soothingly. "No doubt the police chase about on a hundred false clews a
+day. Their information can't always be right."
+
+"You feel like a fool, though, if you give them the wrong clew."
+
+"Yes, you do."
+
+The promptness of the concession was anything but comforting. Obviously
+McPhearson felt that in the present instance, at least, the tip offered
+had been both valueless and absurd. A strained silence fell between
+them.
+
+"I suppose we may as well hail another bus and get back to the store,"
+the clock repairer at length suggested. "There's no good hanging round
+here."
+
+Although he did not actually say in so many words that they had already
+wasted two fares, Christopher, well aware of his Scotch thrift, felt his
+manner implied it.
+
+They did not say much during the ride down town. McPhearson was a bit
+ruffled and annoyed, and Christopher crestfallen and mortified. He was
+thinking, too, that he would have to confess to his father what he had
+so impulsively done, and receive from him more jeers and ridicule linked
+with probable admonitions to greater deliberation and caution in future.
+He hated to be preached at. Therefore he was entirely unprepared for the
+ovation that greeted his return to the shop.
+
+Hollings was near the door when he went in and had evidently been
+waiting for him.
+
+"Birdie is securely in his cage!" announced he, dropping his voice so
+that the thrilling tidings might not be overheard by customers close at
+hand.
+
+"What?" gasped Christopher.
+
+"Yes, he's bagged for fair! Your father is delighted. They're all
+upstairs waiting for you--Corrigan, Davis, and all. We're to go down to
+headquarters and identify the chap."
+
+"Then it really _was_ Stuart!"
+
+"Sure thing!" Hollings was actually trembling with joy. "Oh, I hope
+they'll find those diamonds on him! At least, they'll probably be able
+to make him tell where they are. If we can only get that ring back, I
+shall die happy."
+
+"So you were right after all, Christopher," McPhearson put in.
+
+"Apparently!"
+
+The cry, _"I told you so!"_ rose like a wave to the lad's lips and then
+as speedily receded. Why should he feel triumphant? Mistakes are always
+possible, and he might have been mistaken. Fortunately this time he had
+not been, that was all.
+
+"I'm glad!" the clockmaker declared.
+
+"So am I!" replied the boy modestly.
+
+No further comment was made except as they went up in the elevator, the
+old man added:
+
+"It's never amiss to have your eyes about you, son. The majority of
+folks might as well have two glass beads in their heads, so little do
+they really observe of what they see. To have your eyes open and your
+mouth shut isn't a bad notion."
+
+It was like McPhearson to turn his praise into good council. He never
+flattered. Perhaps, too, it was just as well, for Christopher received
+that noon all the adulation that was good for him.
+
+Corrigan, the big inspector, clapped him on the shoulders, calling him a
+little general; and Davis almost wrung his hand off. Even the silent Mr.
+Norcross announced he was a son to be proud of. As for Mr. Burton,
+Senior--well, he merely settled back into his office chair and beamed
+about him.
+
+"I made no mistake when I christened that boy Christopher Mark Antony
+Burton, fourth," announced he, as if every whit of responsibility for
+the boy's good judgment were traceable to his name. "He has the stuff in
+him--has had since babyhood."
+
+But Mr. Inspector did not wholly agree.
+
+"You've got to do more than have good blood in your veins," he asserted,
+with a hint of scorn. "The young one used his brains, he did, and used
+'em quick without thanks to his ancestors. Had he loitered about and
+depended on his great-grandfather, Stuart would have got away."
+
+There was a general laugh, in which even Mr. Burton, chagrined though he
+was, joined.
+
+Afterward the two police officers, Christopher, his father, Mr.
+Rhinehart, and Hollings rolled away to headquarters to identify the
+captured diamond thief.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CHRISTOPHER RECOGNIZES AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
+
+
+Yes, it was Stuart! There could be no possible doubt about that; nor,
+indeed, did the culprit attempt to deny his identity. Perhaps he
+realized that to do so would be futile. There he was in his wig,
+whiskers, glasses, ulster, and slouch hat; and the next moment, presto,
+valeted by Mr. Inspector, there he was in his fur coat--the elegant
+gentleman who had invaded Burton and Norcross' jewelry store!
+
+Hollings recognized him in a twinkling and without a shade of hesitation
+singled him out from twelve other men; so, also, did Mr. Rhinehart and
+Christopher.
+
+Poor Stuart! He was too genuine a sport to whine when he saw the game
+was up. On the contrary he assumed a good-natured, almost humorous
+stoicism, as if his capture were nothing more than a feature of the
+day's work. Only one fact regarding it did he appear to resent and that
+was that a person wary as himself should have been tracked down and
+trapped by a mere boy. Incontestably this wounded his pride.
+Nevertheless he tried valiantly to conceal his chagrin, maintaining
+throughout the ordeal of identification his jaunty pose and saluting
+Christopher, whom he instantly remembered having seen on the car, with
+a mocking bow and a smile of admiration.
+
+"It was a neat trick you played me, youngster," announced he, as the lad
+approached. "They will be annexing you to the staff here if you don't
+look out."
+
+"I had to do it, you know," Christopher answered, half apologizing for
+the double-faced role he had played. "I'm not usually a
+squealer--honest, I'm not. But the diamonds belonged to my father, and I
+saw you take them."
+
+"Of course, sonny, of course. I'm not kicking--it was a fair game," the
+big fellow returned without a shadow of anger. "So you saw me take them,
+did you? Why didn't you sing out at the time?"
+
+"It all happened so quickly that I could hardly trust my eyes," was the
+response. "Besides, you looked so much like a gentleman that I couldn't
+believe you were just a--a--"
+
+"Thief," cut in Stuart sharply, supplying the word at which the boy had
+halted. Nevertheless despite the glibness with which he uttered it, he
+cringed and a flood of telltale color rose to his hair. It was the first
+time he had exhibited the slightest feeling.
+
+Uncomfortably Christopher nodded.
+
+"Well, that's what I am, you see," continued the man who had now
+regained his former debonnaire manner, "so the next time look out and
+don't be taken in. There are gentlemen who are thieves, sonny, and then
+again there are thieves who are gentlemen--at least I hope so."
+
+So unruffled was his temper, so brave the front he put on the
+inevitable, that as Christopher saw him led away between two guards a
+momentary pang of regret passed over him. If Stuart had only happened to
+have turned his talents to some profession besides diamond stealing,
+what a delightful acquaintance he might have proved.
+
+But the next instant Corrigan, the head inspector, broke in on this
+reverie, and his words banished further repining:
+
+"The scoundrel won't open his lips," declared he to Mr. Burton. "What
+he's done with those diamonds we can't find out. He's mum as an oyster.
+I hoped we might tempt him into making a clean breast of the matter--but
+not he! He's too hardened a chap for repentance, I reckon."
+
+"His pal, Tony, may have them."
+
+"No doubt," acquiesced the chief. "The two probably have a cache where
+they stow their loot."
+
+"I wish we could find it."
+
+"So do I, with all my heart. We may, too, if we succeed in running down
+the other chap," Corrigan returned. "I shan't give up hope with Mr.
+Christopher on the job."
+
+"I fancy my son isn't going into the business of tracking down criminals
+permanently," Burton, Senior, retorted a bit stiffly.
+
+"Like enough not," came tartly from Corrigan.
+
+"Still, he can keep his peepers open, eh, youngster?"
+
+He smiled down upon Christopher from beneath his shaggy brows, and
+Christopher smiled back. There was something very likeable about
+Corrigan.
+
+"I'll look alive," grinned the boy. "Only of course you know this kill
+was just a fluke."
+
+The modest words evidently pleased the inspector.
+
+"That's all right," said he. "You may make another. Who knows?"
+
+He patted the lad's shoulder encouragingly and in friendly fashion
+added:
+
+"Nobody bags a diamond robber every day."
+
+They went out--Mr. Burton, his son, and the two clerks.
+
+"We may as well go to luncheon now," announced Christopher's father,
+when the men had left them. "Where shall we go? We'll have a real
+celebration in honor of Stuart's capture."
+
+"Poor Stuart!" murmured the lad.
+
+"Mercy on us! Surely you are not regretting that you landed him in
+jail."
+
+"No-o. Still, I'm sorry for him."
+
+"Of course. We're always sorry to see a person of his ability go wrong.
+But he has only himself to thank for his fate. He might have known at
+the outset where he would bring up. They all are trapped sooner or
+later."
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"Come, come, son! Don't go wasting any romantic sympathy on Stuart--or
+whatever his name is. He wouldn't appreciate it. Why, he would rob us
+again to-morrow if he got the chance," the head of the firm asserted
+harshly.
+
+"Probably he would."
+
+"You know he would."
+
+"Y-es. But he was such a good sport."
+
+"He knew there was nothing to be gained by whining and making himself
+disagreeable."
+
+Nevertheless, in spite of his father's arguments, Christopher could not
+entirely put the unlucky Stuart out of his mind. Nor did the fried
+scallops, grilled sweet potatoes, and salad which his father ordered for
+him wholly blot out a lurking depression or the haunting memory of the
+criminal's face. It took two chocolate ice creams and an ample square of
+fudge cake to dispel his gloom and bring his spirits back to their
+accustomed cheerfulness.
+
+By the time he and his father returned to the store, however, they were
+practically normal, and he ascended to the fourth floor to hunt up
+McPhearson, who amid the general excitement he had left somewhat
+abruptly.
+
+"Well, so you landed your light-fingered friend, did you, laddie?"
+remarked the Scotchman.
+
+"Mr. Corrigan did."
+
+"It was thanks to you, I guess."
+
+"Partly!"
+
+"Humph! You don't seem very triumphant about it." The old man peered at
+the boy over the top of his glasses.
+
+"I'm not. It made me sick--the whole thing."
+
+"I know, sonny--I know. But we can't have such persons about,"
+McPhearson said gently. "Of course you are sorry to put a fellow behind
+the bars, but--"
+
+"He was so darned decent about it--and so plucky," exclaimed
+Christopher. "Why, he was almost a gentleman."
+
+The sentence ended in a tremulous laugh.
+
+"No doubt he may have started out to be a gentleman--poor chap--and then
+got on the wrong track. Well, you did what was right. You know that."
+
+"I hope so," was the dull answer.
+
+"We'll not talk about it any more. Come, let's shift the subject to
+something else."
+
+"To clocks?"
+
+"Aren't you tired of clocks?"
+
+"No. Are you?"
+
+"I never get tired of them," smiled McPhearson. "If I did, it would be
+fatal. They are my daily bread."
+
+"And mine, too, for that matter," rejoined Christopher.
+
+"Perhaps," admitted the Scotchman. "Still you do not subsist wholly on
+clocks. Your bread is studded with pearls, emeralds, and rubies."
+
+The fancy pleased the boy, and he laughed.
+
+"Rather indigestible eating," he protested.
+
+"And yet you look fit as a king."
+
+There was a moment's pause; then the man said:
+
+"Well, if we are to talk clocks, where shall we begin?"
+
+"Anywhere you like," returned the lad, with a shrug of his shoulders.
+
+"Suppose, then, since you are so docile and accommodating, we leap to
+somewhere near the year 1650, when the inspiration to attach the
+pallets of the escapement to the pendulum rod, thereby making the
+escapement horizontal, came almost simultaneously to an Englishman named
+Harris and a Dutchman named Huyghens. These, together with the later
+ideas of anchor escapement evolved by Graham, put clocks, within the
+span of a few years, on an almost modern basis. Other improvements such
+as using steel springs in place of weights and the perfecting of
+movements have of course been made since; but this period covers the
+time of most vital improvement in the art of clockmaking. At this time,
+too, some of the finest of old English watches and clocks were made.
+Thomas Tompion, sometimes called the father of English clock making,
+took his place at the head of these, and to this day beautiful old
+clocks that are still in service testify to his skillful workmanship."
+
+"What sort of clocks did he make?" inquired Christopher with interest.
+
+"Just about every design of the period--bracket clocks similar to those
+of Richard Parsons'; long-case, or what we call grandfather, clocks;
+even brass clocks with projecting dials; and in addition, the greater
+part of the finest watches turned out at this time were of his making.
+There were few who could equal him. Possibly Daniel Quare and Joseph
+Knibb made clocks as good, but they certainly made no better. Were you
+to visit Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle, you would find there
+wonderful chiming grandfather clocks made by this same Thomas Tompion.
+They are genuine treasures and would bring almost any price. So
+remember, in journeying through the world, if you ever run across a
+clock or a watch made by Thomas Tompion, you are looking at a very fine
+bit of handicraft."
+
+"I'm afraid I never shall," Christopher shook his head.
+
+"One never can tell where his path through life will take him,"
+McPhearson said. "For example, I never expected my wanderings would lead
+me from Glasgow to America. Nor, probably, did Stuart dream when he woke
+up to-day that his morning ride in a Fifth Avenue bus would land him in
+jail. So you must not despair of seeing London and some of Thomas
+Tompion's clocks. Moreover, should you go there, I hope you will hunt up
+in Westminster Abbey the grave of this famous man."
+
+"Was he buried at Westminster? Why, I thought only kings, queens, poets,
+and great people had places there," Christopher ventured, a trifle
+incredulous.
+
+"Usually they do, but Thomas Tompion well merited the honor due him, I
+assure you. To begin with, he was no ordinary tradesman. He was a person
+of culture who all his life associated with the foremost philosophers
+and mathematicians of his day. So widely was his ability recognized that
+he was made leading watchmaker to the court of Charles II. Now, although
+timekeepers had vastly improved, they were still pretty faulty,
+experimental contrivances, whose outside trappings counted with the
+public far more than did their interior mechanism. Tompion changed all
+this. Seizing upon all that was good offered by the inventors preceding
+him, he carefully re-proportioned the various parts and produced English
+clocks and watches that were at once the pride and despair of his
+brother craftsmen. Watches were something of an avocation with him, for
+his primary trade was in clocks, to which for many years he devoted his
+entire labor. Probably, however, the problems a watch presented won his
+interest and led him to try his skill in this new field, with the result
+that he was soon making watches that as far surpassed his associates' as
+did his clocks. He made a watch for the king, the fame of which traveled
+to France and prompted the Dauphin to order two like it. These watches
+all had two balances and balance springs fashioned after the scheme
+Hooke had worked out. They also, like most of Tompion's timekeepers, had
+an hour and a minute hand. One more innovation which he presented (and
+it was a very practical one) was the numbering of his watch movements
+for purposes of identification--a plan very generally followed since by
+present-day workmen. And yet all this which I have told you does not
+give you half an idea of what Tompion really was."
+
+McPhearson paused thoughtfully.
+
+"Thomas Tompion stood for something more than any of these things. He
+was a genuine lover of his art, and when we see or read of the many
+kinds of clocks and watches he produced, we cannot but feel the joy he
+had in making them. He made, for example, a marvellous clock that would
+run a year without winding, which William III had in his bedroom at
+Kensington Palace, it having been left to him by the Earl of Leicester.
+This clock, although small, struck the hours and quarter-hours, and was
+of ebony with silver mountings. And to prove to you that it was no
+novelty timepiece to be used merely for ornament, I will tell you that
+now, after a hundred and fifty years, it is still running and faithfully
+doing its duty."
+
+"Who owns it?" queried Christopher.
+
+"It has for a century and a half been in the possession of the family of
+Lord Mostyn and so famous has been its history that this nobleman has
+kept the names of those who have wound it during the last hundred
+years."
+
+"All sorts of bigwigs, I suppose," put in Christopher.
+
+"A list of celebrated persons, you may be sure."
+
+"Was Ebenezer on it?" Christopher chuckled mischievously.
+
+"Most likely he would have been had he not been so busy winding Mr.
+Hawley's treasures," replied the Scotchman, smiling at the jest. "Then
+in 1695 Tompion made a very fine traveling striking and alarm watch with
+case beautifully chased. The Pump Room at Bath boasts a tall clock of
+his make--a present from him to the city in acknowledgment of the
+benefits he derived from its mineral waters. There are also examples of
+his craft in famous clock collections both here and in England, the
+Wetherfield collection owning eighteen made by him."
+
+"And did his tall clocks have weights?"
+
+"Yes, their driving power was a big lead weight. The clock at Bath has
+a thirty-two-pound weight of lead which drops monthly six feet."
+
+"Is it only wound each month?"
+
+"That's all. Some of these tall clocks made by Tompion ran a year
+without winding. Nor must you get the impression that clocks and watches
+were the only things this remarkable mechanic produced, for at Hampton
+Court is a barometer of his construction, proving him to be a master of
+more intricate science than the mere art of time-keeping. In fact many
+of his clocks show the days and the months, as well as the difference
+between sun time and mean time."
+
+"I don't quite understand what mean time is. Isn't all time alike?"
+
+"Mercy, no! Sun time and our time are two quite different things. Some
+day I will tell you why. Of this Thomas Tompion, although he lived long
+ago, was well aware. You see, therefore, he was no ordinary uneducated
+clockmaker. What wonder that he and George Graham, one of the
+illustrious pupils he trained, should have been buried together at
+Westminster Abbey!"
+
+"You haven't told me anything about Graham."
+
+"He was a nephew of Tompion and a very clever craftsman whose clocks did
+honor to his teacher. _Honest George Graham_, he was called--not a bad
+way to come down through history. Personally I would rather have that
+handle before my name than to have _Lord_ or _Duke_ precede it and I
+fancy George Graham was of a type who felt that way too! So devoted were
+he and Tompion and so closely linked was their work that when Graham
+died, the grave of Tompion was opened in order that the two men might be
+buried together. Then a stone was made reading:
+
+    Here lies the body of Mr. Tho. Tompion who departed this life
+    the 20th of November 1713 in the 75th year of his age.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Also the body of George Graham of London watchmaker and F.R.S.
+    whose curious inventions do honour to ye British genius whose
+    accurate performances are ye standard of Mechanic Skill. He died
+    ye XVI of November MDCCLI in the LXXVIII year of his age.
+
+"Now a bit of interesting history is attached to this stone. Several
+years after it had been put in place a younger generation came along who
+knew very little of either Tompion or his pupil Graham, and seeing the
+large tablet, some of them decided to take it up and put instead smaller
+stones with only the inscriptions:
+
+    Mr. T. Tompion 1713
+    Mr. G. Graham  1751
+
+upon them. Perhaps the authorities felt the big stone took up too much
+room; or perhaps they felt it heaped undue honor on two men who in their
+estimation were really nothing but tradesmen; or, worse yet, perhaps
+they had forgotten all Tompion and Graham did for the rest of us.
+However that may be, in 1842 a Bond Street watchmaker had loyalty and
+courage enough to protest, and through the late Dean Stanley the old
+stone, fortunately uninjured, was hunted up and reinstated in its
+original position, thereby proving that England does not after all
+forget her debt to these splendidly intelligent workmen."
+
+"I'm glad the first stone was put back," Christopher asserted. "Who on
+earth would ever know from the skimpy marking on the other one who Mr.
+T. Tompion or Mr. G. Graham were?"
+
+"Probably very few persons--only those, most likely, who had made a
+study of clocks. To my mind it is far better to remind the ignorant who
+perhaps never heard of Tompion or Graham, to hold their memory in
+grateful respect. Possibly, too, the inscription on the tablet may
+prompt the casual passer-by to look up what these two men did, and if so
+a keener appreciation of them will be established."
+
+"I shall go and see that stone if I ever go to London," Christopher
+declared.
+
+"Do, laddie. And see some of their clocks, too. Graham was a clever,
+broadly educated man, who worked out many astronomical instruments in
+addition to his clockmaking. When you view either his handiwork or that
+of Tompion, you will see the product of master craftsmen. And in the
+meantime don't forget Daniel Quare, Samuel Knibb, or Ahasuerus
+Fromanteel, who although unhonored by stones in the Abbey, are well
+worthy of being remembered."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+AN AMAZING ADVENTURE
+
+
+Within a day or two Christopher was once more reminded of the diamond
+robbery by having Corrigan call up the firm and announce that Stuart,
+wanted in Chicago for the rifling of a safe, had been taken west under
+guard.
+
+"As yet," concluded the inspector, "we have made no progress toward the
+recovery of the ring. It has neither put in its appearance at any of the
+pawnshops nor have we been able to trace the stones. We do not, however,
+despair of getting some clew and shall still keep on the lookout."
+
+"I suppose you have no track of Tony--Stuart's accomplice, either?"
+inquired Mr. Burton over the wire.
+
+"None, I am sorry to say."
+
+With a sigh of discouragement the senior partner hung up the receiver.
+
+"I guess the incident is as good as closed," remarked he. "In my opinion
+we can bid good-by to those diamonds and accept our burglar insurance
+with thankfulness that our loss was not greater."
+
+"But Stuart's pal may show up yet, Dad," ventured the optimistic
+Christopher, who chanced at the moment to be in the office.
+
+"I doubt it." Skeptically Mr. Burton shook his head. "More likely he
+has decided New York is too hot for him and has left town for pastures
+new."
+
+"He may be lying low," asserted the habitually silent Mr. Norcross.
+
+"Possibly."
+
+Nevertheless, despite his acquiescence, Mr. Burton returned to his
+letters with an air indicative that at least, so far as he was
+concerned, the possibility he granted was an exceedingly remote one--too
+remote to merit further consideration.
+
+And indeed it did appear to be so until one day, like a meteor out of
+the heavens, a grimy communication postmarked Chicago was brought to
+Christopher, who in a fit of boredom was roaming aimlessly about the
+lamp department.
+
+"I guess this is meant for you, Mr. Christopher," announced the
+messenger, whose duty it was to distribute the store mail. "Funny way to
+address it, though. You'd take it for a valentine:
+
+    _Mr. Burton's son
+        Care Burton and Norcross, Jewellers,
+            New York City._"
+
+"That's me all right," cried Christopher, forgetting in his excitement
+and curiosity such a trivial incidental as grammar.
+
+He took the letter, regarding with amusement its disreputable
+appearance.
+
+"Humph! They didn't waste very dressy stationery on me, did they?"
+laughed he.
+
+"It isn't deckle-edge paper with a ducal seal, if that is what you're
+expecting," grinned the boy, not unwilling to air his knowledge of such
+matters.
+
+As with an impish grimace he disappeared Christopher tore open the
+envelope he held and drew from it a single crushed manilla sheet on
+which was scrawled:
+
+    I told you it was not impossible for a thief to be a gentleman,
+    and to prove it, I am tipping you off about that ring. I
+    wouldn't do this either for your father or for Corrigan, but
+    you're such a decent little chap I'd like you to have the thing
+    back again. Besides, as I am in quod for a long term, the
+    sparklers will do me no good. At 184 Speedwell St. (Suite 6) I
+    hold a room under the name of Carlton. You will find the loot
+    hidden in the flooring under a narrow board between the radiator
+    and the window. The police will be only too glad to help you
+    reclaim it. There are a few other trinkets there too they will
+    like to have. The stuff is all mine. I quarreled with my pal
+    after the affair at your father's store, and since then have
+    been playing a lone game. Good luck to you, little chap. Maybe
+    if I'd started out with your chance, I should not be where I am
+    to-day. I wish to Heaven I had.
+
+Twice Christopher read the letter, his eyes wide, and his throat a bit
+choky with emotion. To say he was surprised at the contents of the
+strange communication would have been to put it mildly. Not only was he
+astounded, he was somewhat incredulous. And yet, overmastering this
+disbelief was a certainty that the writer of the letter was speaking
+the truth. Urged on by some whim of his own, some impulse so subtle it
+defied analysis, Stuart was returning the property he had stolen.
+Perhaps remorse had overtaken him; perhaps shame; or possibly these
+gentler motives did but mingle with the realization that the gems, as he
+himself asserted, would now be useless to him. At any rate, repentant or
+not, here he was giving them back to their rightful owner!
+
+What wonder the letter needed neither salutation nor signature to
+identify its sender? That Stuart had penned the note and contrived to
+find some one he could trust to mail it was obvious. And yet
+Christopher, fingering it, could not but speculate as to how it had
+struggled to freedom. Through what strange hands had it passed,--what
+mazes of strategy and concealment? Ah, it was futile to attempt to trace
+its devious trail. Here it was in his possession, and with a sudden
+inrush of joy, his bewildered senses stirred to action, and he hastened
+with his tidings to his father's office, where he burst in on Mr. Burton
+in the act of dictating a letter:
+
+"Oh, Dad!" ejaculated he. "I've the biggest sort of a surprise for you.
+He's written me! Think of that! Written to say where it is."
+
+"Christopher!" thundered his father. "What do you mean by dashing in
+here like a madman and interrupting my work? Have you forgotten this is
+my private office? Offer your apologies to me and to Miss Elkins and
+then sit down and wait until I am at leisure."
+
+"I'm sorry, Dad. I was so excited that--"
+
+"There, there! That will do. You don't need to tell me you are excited.
+Pray calm yourself and sit down quietly until I am at liberty to hear
+what you have to say."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Crestfallen, the boy sank into a big leather chair in a dim corner of
+the room.
+
+    "and in reply advise you that shipment billed to us via S.S.
+    _George Washington_ has been received, and is in every way
+    satisfactory. We will remit payment as usual through our
+    Amsterdam brokers.
+
+    "Appreciating your courteous and reliable service, I remain,
+        Truly yours,
+            Christopher Mark Antony Burton, third."
+
+Mr. Burton came to a stop and leaned back in his massive mahogany chair.
+
+"There, Miss Elkins, get that off immediately," ordered he. "Also the
+two cablegrams I dictated. That will be all at present. Now,
+Christopher, suppose you give me your mighty tidings."
+
+A faint note of sarcasm, not lost on the boy, echoed in the words, and
+with enthusiasm quenched, the lad silently produced his note and laid it
+on his father's desk.
+
+"What's this?" Mr. Burton asked.
+
+"You can read it."
+
+"A vilely dirty scrap of paper. What have you been doing with
+it--cleaning your shoes?"
+
+"It was that way when it came."
+
+"Came? Came from whom?"
+
+"Read it and see."
+
+"But the thing has neither beginning nor end. Was it meant for you?"
+
+"Yes, sir. It came through the mail."
+
+Taking the envelope from his pocket, Christopher placed it beside the
+letter.
+
+Mr. Burton, however, did not heed either object.
+
+Instead, with deliberation, he took off his glasses, wiped them and put
+them back on his nose. Then he lighted a fresh cigar. Even an observer
+less keen than his son could have detected that the major portion of his
+mind was still occupied by the cablegrams and dictation that had
+previously engaged him, and that he anticipated no very vital
+disclosures from the morsel of grimy paper he so gingerly took up.
+
+Slowly he read it. Then the boy, watching, saw his figure become tense,
+and a flash of amazement light his eyes.
+
+"Great Heavens!" cried he, startled out of his customary dignity. "It's
+from Stuart. Why didn't you say so at once?"
+
+"I tried to tell you."
+
+"Yes, yes. I know! But I had no idea you had anything as important as
+this to say. If you had only explained--"
+
+"I was going to, only you--"
+
+"Well, we won't stop to discuss all that now. I'll call Corrigan
+immediately. I don't suppose there is any chance but the note is
+genuine. Why, it would be a seven-days' wonder if we should get those
+stones back. The insurance money was no compensation for them. We could
+not buy three such perfectly matched diamonds had we ten times their
+price. Of course there is a possibility this letter may be a fake, but
+somehow I've a feeling it is real. We'll consult Corrigan and see what
+he says."
+
+Mr. Burton reached for the telephone.
+
+"Hello! Give me Plaza 77098.--Is Mr. Corrigan there?--Just going
+out?--Catch him before he leaves, and tell him, please, that Mr. Burton
+wishes to speak with him." A pause followed, in which Mr. Burton
+nervously drummed on his desk. Then he leaned forward expectantly. "Mr.
+Corrigan? This is Mr. Burton speaking. I've some news for you. My son
+has this morning received from Chicago a letter purporting to come from
+Stuart and giving the location of that ring.--Of course it may
+be--What's that?--You are on your way up to this vicinity? That will be
+very nice then.--Yes, eleven will suit us all right. Good-by."
+
+"He is coming up, is he?"
+
+"Yes. He happened to be coming, anyway. A queer thing--that letter. I
+hardly know what to think about it."
+
+"Nor I."
+
+"I certainly never heard of a thief relenting and returning his spoils."
+
+"I'm afraid he doesn't--usually," smiled Christopher.
+
+"Then why do it this time?" mused Burton, Senior, pondering the mystery.
+
+"You've got me, unless, as Stuart himself explains, he is in for a long
+prison term and knows the diamonds won't do him any good."
+
+"But he could leave them where they are and run the chance of finding
+them when he gets out. If they are well concealed it is unlikely anybody
+would discover them. I don't get it at all."
+
+Scowling, Mr. Burton lapsed into a silence so forbidding that
+Christopher dared not interrupt it, and accordingly the two sat without
+speaking until Mr. Corrigan was announced.
+
+It took not a moment to see the inspector was more than wontedly
+excited.
+
+"Where is this remarkable communication?" demanded he without
+preliminary. "Humph! Looks as though it had been through the wars,
+doesn't it! A scrap of paper some convict had concealed, most likely,
+together with the stump of a pencil. Those fellows are pretty clever;
+and Stuart probably got some chap whose sentence was up to mail it when
+he went out. He would hardly risk sending information like this by
+anybody except one of his own kind. And even then he would have to be
+pretty certain his messenger could be trusted. It was taking a big
+chance. Sometimes, however, there is honor among thieves."
+
+"Do you think the letter is genuine?" inquired Mr. Burton.
+
+"How, genuine? That it tells the truth, you mean? Yes, I do. I think
+Stuart was prompted to return the ring for the very reasons he
+states--he took a fancy to Christopher, and he saw the diamonds would
+now be of no use to him."
+
+"But he could have left them where they are."
+
+"For a term of ten or twelve years? But think, Mr. Burton, of the
+changes liable to take place in that time. The building might be torn
+down and replaced by another, or it might be converted into a business
+block; or, again, fire might destroy it. In any of these cases the
+jewels would be lost to Stuart. Moreover, even if he tried to recover
+them years hence, it might be very difficult to do so. He weighed all
+these considerations, you may be sure, before he sent that letter. Still
+I am not sure they were the factors primarily influencing him. He liked
+Christopher and evidently wished to do him a good turn. Such men as he
+often have soft streaks in them--impulses for good."
+
+"You mean to follow up the clew then?"
+
+"Mean to follow it up? Man alive! Certainly I do. And what is more, I
+mean to lose no time in doing it," answered Corrigan, rising.
+
+"I wish--" began Christopher, and then stopped.
+
+"You wish you could go along?" asked the inspector, turning toward the
+lad with a friendly smile.
+
+"That is what I was going to say--yes."
+
+"Well, we'll take you. I think you've earned the right to be in at the
+finish."
+
+"Really!" cried Christopher.
+
+"Sure thing."
+
+"Do you think he'd better go?" Mr. Burton queried, instantly anxious.
+"You hardly know what you are going to get into. It may be a trap of
+some sort. Suppose, as a matter of revenge, there were a bomb under the
+floor."
+
+"I'm not doing any worrying on that score," responded the inspector.
+"Had Stuart sent the note to you or to me, I should be on my guard; but
+as it has come to Christopher, I have no fears. Of course, however, I
+shall take every precaution."
+
+"I hope so, for the sake of every one concerned."
+
+"Oh, I shall be careful, Mr. Burton. Don't you worry about that. I have
+my eye teeth cut."
+
+"When do you mean to take up the affair?"
+
+"This minute! As soon as I can get my men together and the necessary
+formalities disposed of."
+
+"Am I to go right along with you?" Christopher leaped to his feet.
+
+"Yes. Fetch your hat and coat. I'll take care of the boy, Mr. Burton.
+Have no concern about him. It is only natural he should wish to see this
+job through, having been mixed up in it from the first. Besides,
+remember we have him to thank for every clew we have succeeded in
+getting. It was he who witnessed the robbery; he who trapped and
+identified Stuart; he who now furnishes us with the whereabouts of the
+loot. You wouldn't deprive him of seeing the end of the drama, would
+you?"
+
+"No-o," answered Mr. Burton slowly. "Still, it is no place for him. He's
+been mixed up with criminals and police stations ever since he came into
+this store. I didn't bring him here for any such purpose. Why, he has
+secured more knowledge of thieves and prisons during the last few weeks
+than he would have gathered together in a lifetime."
+
+"He may be the wiser for it, too. Have you thought of that? Crime isn't
+very attractive when one sees this side of it."
+
+"That is true," agreed Burton, Senior.
+
+"Let Christopher alone, Mr. Burton. What he has seen won't hurt him. It
+has been a grim, sad adventure in which it would be hard to find one
+alluring feature."
+
+"I guess that is true. Certainly evil has not triumphed."
+
+"It never does--in the long run," declared Corrigan emphatically. "I've
+seen the thing over and over again, and have followed the history of
+most of the men we have tracked down. Sooner or later they are brought
+to justice. In the meantime they lead the lives of hunted foxes, never
+knowing a safe or peaceful moment. Some may call that happiness, but I
+don't. When you make of yourself an outlaw and cut yourself off from the
+big universe of decent people, you sentence yourself to a pretty
+wretched, lonely life. Even the worst of criminals often wish themselves
+back into that world they have left behind them, and which they know for
+a certainty they never can enter again."
+
+"Stuart seemed to in his letter."
+
+"That's exactly what I mean. Even Stuart, who has been at this sort of
+thing since he was a young lad, isn't contented with the lot he has
+chosen. Could he start over, he would follow the other path. He as good
+as says so himself. They are all like that when you get them at their
+best moments. That is why I am so sure this note to Christopher tells
+the truth. It is the voice of Stuart sighing for what might have been."
+
+"Have you any idea where this street he mentions is?" interrogated Mr.
+Burton.
+
+"Oh, yes. It is up in Harlem. A very decent locality. We shall have no
+trouble. Doubtless the people of whom he hired his room thought him a
+gentleman. He could ape one when he tried. Moreover, he had a good deal
+of the gentleman in him. Probably were we able to dig out his ancestry,
+we should find he came of excellent parentage. He's a gentleman gone
+wrong."
+
+"It's a pity."
+
+"It's worse than that, Mr. Burton. It is a tragedy," declared Corrigan,
+as he and Christopher went out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE SEQUEL TO THE LETTER
+
+
+One hundred eighty-four Speedwell Street proved to be a trim, well-kept
+apartment leased by a clerk in one of the large dry-goods houses and
+occupied by himself, his wife, his sister and two children. The family
+was of French descent and was thrifty and respectable. In order to make
+both ends of their slender income meet they had taken as a boarder Mr.
+Carlton (alias Stuart) whom they had found to be a delightful addition
+to the household.
+
+"Yes, indeed! We know Monsieur Carlton well," replied the pretty little
+wife in response to Corrigan's inquiries. "He is charming. Such a
+gentleman and so kind to the children! But he is away just now. In fact,
+we have heard nothing from him for several days and were becoming a
+trifle worried by his silence. I hope no ill has befallen him."
+Apprehensively her eye traveled with questioning gaze over the
+inspector's blue uniform.
+
+"I am afraid your boarder will not be back for some time," responded he
+not unkindly.
+
+"Something has happened to him then. _Mon Dieu!_ I am sorry--sorry! The
+children will break their hearts crying. Has he been hurt? Or maybe he
+is ill?"
+
+"No, it is nothing of that sort. Later I will explain it all to you. He
+sent us to get something he had left here."
+
+"To be sure. Come in, won't you? Ah, I am glad he is not sick! See, this
+is his room. We gave him our best one because he liked it and could
+pay."
+
+"May I bring in some men who accompanied me?" asked Corrigan gently.
+
+"Surely! Whatever you wish you may do since you are Mr. Carlton's
+friend. But I do not at all understand what is the trouble. Can't you--"
+
+"By and by, madam, you shall know."
+
+"It must, of course, be as you wish," agreed the tiny French woman with
+a smile. "I know nothing about it. Why should I interfere? Will you and
+your companions please step this way?" Then with surprise, "What, more
+police?"
+
+"Yes. But you must not be afraid," the inspector declared reassuringly.
+"We want nothing of you. Only what Mr.--"
+
+"Carlton--"
+
+"Mr. Carlton sent us to secure," concluded Corrigan.
+
+"Eh, _bien_! Enter then. This is the way. It is here Mr. Carlton sleeps.
+A pleasant room, you see. Books, magazines, and even a plant in bloom.
+He is fond of flowers."
+
+"I am not surprised," murmured Corrigan with a shrug. "A gentleman--as I
+asserted. The radiator is here, Tim. That must be the board. Take it up
+carefully so not to splinter it and deface the flooring. No doubt it
+will come easily."
+
+"The floor--you are not going to tear up the floor!" cried the woman
+excitedly.
+
+"Only one board," was the soothing answer. "We shall do no injury to
+your premises."
+
+"But surely Mr. Carlton would not hide things away under the floor; only
+thieves do that." She laughed a tremulous, half-frightened laugh at the
+absurdity of the jest.
+
+"How about it, Tim? Is it coming?" questioned Corrigan, ignoring the
+pleasantry.
+
+"It stirs, sir; but it is not so loose as you might expect. Didn't Blake
+bring a chisel?"
+
+"Yes, it's here. Why not run a knife down that crack and see if you
+can't raise the board a little. If you can lift it enough to slip
+something under it will come up," directed the chief.
+
+"It's coming now, sir. There, we have it!"
+
+"Take out all those wads of tissue paper."
+
+"Here they are, sir."
+
+"Any more?"
+
+"I reckon not, sir."
+
+"Still, you'd better make sure. Run your hand in at each end as far as
+you can reach."
+
+"There's nothing there, sir. A beam goes along where those nails are."
+
+"You are sure there is no other opening?"
+
+"Certain of it."
+
+"Nevertheless, I'll have a look myself."
+
+"To be sure, Mr. Corrigan," the officer replied, stepping aside.
+
+Carefully the chief stooped down and explored the chasm with his hand.
+
+"You're right, Tim; there is nothing more," asserted he. "We have
+everything we came after, I guess."
+
+"I am glad to hear that," put in the French woman with returning
+confidence. "Mr. Carlton will, I am sure, be pleased that you found what
+he sent you for. But what a strange place for him to store his property!
+Things of value, no doubt, which he treasured and feared might be lost.
+Have you any idea when he will be back? Perhaps if you would give me his
+address I might write him a letter--that is, if you think--" She halted
+timidly.
+
+For the fraction of a second Corrigan was silent as if he winced at
+performing the duty before him.
+
+"I am afraid, madam," responded he at last, "that Mr. Carlton will not
+return; nor, I fear, will you wish him back when you know the
+circumstances under which he has disappeared. Suffice it to say we come
+vested with authority to take possession of his personal effects. After
+to-day there will be no need for you to reserve his room."
+
+"You mean he is not to return at all--_never_?" asked the woman in an
+awe-stricken voice.
+
+Corrigan nodded.
+
+Weakly the woman dropped into a chair, a sudden light of pained
+understanding breaking over her face.
+
+"You mean Mr. Carlton--"
+
+"That was not his real name," interrupted the officer. "He went under
+several names. Stuart is the one the police know him by. He was a
+professional diamond thief."
+
+"No, no! I cannot believe it," protested the loyal little creature
+stoutly. "Why, he was all kindness to us. When my husband was ill he
+nursed him for a whole week, day and night. He gave toys to the
+children, did errands, and often brought us fruit or candy. Are you sure
+there is no mistake? Certainly we should know if he were a bad man."
+
+"Alas, my good woman, the proofs we hold in our hands are so convincing
+as to leave not the slightest possibility for error. There were, you
+see, two Carltons--the kind, friendly gentleman you knew; and the
+clever, experienced criminal with whom the police were acquainted. Most
+of us are a combination of various selves. This man had two sharply
+contrasting individualities and unfortunately it was the baser of them
+that dominated. He has a long prison record behind him."
+
+"_Ciel!_" The woman clasped her hands in horror. "But why?" exclaimed
+she. "He did not need to steal. He always had plenty of money."
+
+"That was how he got it."
+
+For a while she seemed too stunned to say more; then she whispered:
+
+"And where is he now?"
+
+"Serving a prison sentence for a crime in Chicago."
+
+"It is terrible--terrible! Oh, my husband will be sad to hear this; and
+my sister too. Poor fellow! I can scarcely believe it. Suppose the
+neighbors were to hear we had been housing a burglar--they would not
+speak to us."
+
+"No one will know unless you yourself tell them," the inspector
+answered.
+
+"Ah, you may be sure I shall not do that," was the instant response.
+"Not even my children will I tell. They were fond of Mr. Carlton."
+
+"Let them remain so. It can do no harm. In fact, no doubt the man they
+loved merited their affection," answered the inspector. "I wish he had
+been just that and nothing else."
+
+"And so do I--with all my heart!"
+
+In the meantime, while Corrigan had been occupied with Stuart's landlady
+two bluecoats had been ransacking the closet and searching the contents
+of a trunk that stood in the room. Here they had brought to light a bag
+of tools and a variety of garments, hats, and wigs evidently used as
+disguises.
+
+As they now displayed these trophies before the eyes of the bewildered
+French woman, the last vestige of hope she had cherished vanished and
+she burst into tears.
+
+"Alas, alas!" sobbed she. "He was a bad man. I am convinced of it now.
+And yet I cannot believe he was entirely bad."
+
+"No one is all bad--thank Heaven," the chief responded, as he gathered
+together the things that had been found, sent his men below, and having
+said farewell, closed the door upon the weeping French woman. Then, as
+he and Christopher went soberly downstairs, he added:
+
+"Poor woman--she was all cut up. Everybody who goes wrong breaks
+somebody's heart. He's bound to. The destinies of all of us are so
+entangled with other persons that there is no such thing as living only
+to ourselves. Consider, for example, how many individuals this Stuart
+came in contact with--your father, yourself, Hollings, Rhinehart, and
+these unlucky French people. He might as well have touched those lives
+for good as for evil. And we are only a small part of the men and women
+he has run up against during his existence. When I think of that, it
+turns me pretty sober. The influence each of us exerts reaches a so much
+wider circle than we realize that it certainly behooves us to make the
+power we hold as strong for good as we are able, doesn't it?"
+
+Christopher nodded gravely. Little more was said until the Burton and
+Norcross store was reached, where, parting from their blue-uniformed
+companions, Christopher and the inspector ascended to the firm's private
+offices. Here on the desk of the senior partner Corrigan proceeded to
+unwrap and display the treasure he had recovered. There was a sparkling
+diamond pendant, two or three broaches, a sapphire-studded bracelet, and
+the much-lamented and long-sought-for ring.
+
+"You can identify it, can you, Mr. Burton?" questioned the officer, as
+he passed it over for examination.
+
+"Anywhere on earth, I believe," replied the jeweler. "The setting has
+not even been disturbed. Nevertheless, to make certainty more sure, let
+us send for Hollings and for Rhinehart, our expert."
+
+"By all means."
+
+Mr. Burton touched a bell and gave the order and while waiting for it to
+be obeyed sat regarding the heap of flashing baubles lying before him.
+
+"Somebody beside ourselves will rejoice to see their property coming
+back," mused he. "I wonder who these other things belong to. That
+pendant is a very fine one."
+
+"Without looking up the description I am fairly certain the pendant is
+one lost by a guest at the Biltmore. We have been on the hunt for it
+some time. The other jewels may also belong to the same party. Quite a
+list of missing articles was given us. I have it down at headquarters."
+
+"Well, if the owners are as much gratified to see their diamonds
+returning as we are--"
+
+The opening of the door cut short further comment and Hollings and Mr.
+Rhinehart came into the room. It was evident from their manner they had
+no inkling as to why they had been summoned and the former employee,
+fearful of another disaster, was pallid with apprehension.
+
+"Ever see this ring before, Hollings?" questioned Mr. Burton, whirling
+round in his swivel chair and extending the jewel.
+
+"My soul, sir! You don't mean--" He stopped, speechless.
+
+"What do you say, Mr. Rhinehart?"
+
+"It certainly looks like our property," declared the more cautious
+clerk. "If it is, the identification letters BNC will be found scratched
+inside the band of the ring. Have you a glass there?"
+
+"Mr. Rhinehart isn't going to commit himself without a microscope,"
+chuckled the inspector. "He is dead right too."
+
+"I wish to verify the stones as well as the setting," replied the
+expert.
+
+"I guess in this case your stones are genuine enough. Stuart hadn't much
+chance to tamper with them. Nevertheless, it can do no harm to make
+sure," Corrigan said.
+
+Opening a drawer Mr. Burton produced a powerful glass which he handed to
+Rhinehart who went to the light and carefully scanned the scintillating
+gems.
+
+"Flawless and of the first water!" exclaimed he, after a tense pause.
+"The setting hasn't been touched, so there is practically no danger of
+substitution."
+
+"You mean we have actually got the ring back--diamonds and all?" put in
+Hollings, as if unable to make real the miracle.
+
+"We have--thanks to Mr. Corrigan," was Mr. Burton's reply.
+
+"Thanks to young Christopher, you mean, sir," smiled the chief
+protestingly.
+
+"What can I do to thank you?" cried Hollings. "I said I would give
+anything I possessed if those diamonds could be reclaimed and I'm ready
+to live up to my promise."
+
+"Pooh, pooh!" laughed Corrigan. "I've no wish for payment, man. To win
+out in this game is payment enough for me. Besides, the police are not
+allowed to accept money, you know. An officer of the law gets his
+satisfaction in clearing up a crime and locating the loot. Until he can
+do that his mind is never at peace. This day's stroke has enabled me to
+wipe two mysteries that have balked me off my slate and go to bed
+to-night with at least that many less on my mind."
+
+He rose.
+
+"Well, Chief, all I can say is that we are very grateful to you,"
+declared Mr. Burton.
+
+He would have said more had not the inspector raised his hand with a
+forbidding gesture.
+
+"It's all right, sir. I'm fully as glad as you to see your property
+safely returned. If you have any thanks to bestow, pass them on to your
+son, for without him the missing diamonds might never have been
+located."
+
+Then turning toward the boy he added:
+
+"Should you want a job on the force, youngster, come down to
+headquarters. A lad who can win the hearts of criminals and coax them
+into voluntarily returning their ill-gotten gains would be an immense
+asset in our business."
+
+Shaking hands all round and clapping Christopher affectionately on the
+shoulder, the chief went out.
+
+"Better put that ring back in the show case, Hollings," concluded Mr.
+Burton. "I don't need to caution you to keep an eye on it, I guess."
+
+"You bet you don't!" was the fervent ejaculation. Then Hollings blushed
+to the roots of his hair at having thus addressed the great Mr. Burton.
+
+But for once that worthy appeared to forget his dignity and, becoming
+human, he laughed like a boy of ten.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CLOCK GIANTS
+
+
+Gradually the excitement concerning the diamond robbery died away as do
+ripples in a pool and once more Christopher found himself settling down
+on the little wooden stool at McPhearson's elbow. The two had by this
+time become great friends, the boy preferring the companionship of the
+little Scotchman to that of any one else in the store. Perhaps this
+preference grew in a measure out of the fact that McPhearson appeared to
+like him and make more effort to entertain him than did the other
+clerks; perhaps also he had discovered that the clockmaker, when he did
+speak, was better worth listening to.
+
+Be that as it may, he sallied into the repair department very glad to be
+there again.
+
+"I feel as if I hadn't had a clock lesson for ages," observed he, as he
+sat down.
+
+"Clock lesson? What do you mean?" The man with the swift-moving hands
+shot him a quick, puzzled glance.
+
+"Oh, don't think I am here to steal your trade," retorted Christopher
+mischievously. "I only mean that so far as I am concerned the clock
+world stopped with Quare, Tompion, and Graham."
+
+"Indeed it didn't," contradicted the Scotchman, instantly bristling.
+"Though if it had, you would not need to be pitied for those makers
+would have bequeathed you some pretty fine products. And when you
+consider that Tompion, at least, began life as a blacksmith it is the
+more remarkable. Think what it meant to work out of such a crude, rough
+trade into one so delicate! Still, it was an age of marvels--a strange,
+fantastic, interesting era in which to have lived. Many members of the
+Clockmakers' Company were blacksmiths who had graduated into this higher
+calling and now boasted their own shops and apprentices. These latter
+men helped about under supervision, learning the trade and completing
+from eight to ten years of service before being taken in turn into the
+guild and permitted to make clocks. In the meantime they prepared simple
+parts of the work and made themselves useful in any direction they were
+able, even running errands or standing at the shop door and coaxing the
+passers-by to come in and purchase."
+
+"Pretty primitive advertising," smiled Christopher.
+
+"Advertising was primitive in those days," agreed McPhearson. "Sometimes
+when trade was dull the unfortunate apprentices were sent out to tour
+the streets and bring in customers. Or the present of a watch or clock
+would be made to the king or some nobleman of wealth and influence in
+the hope that such a gift would stimulate others to buy. No doubt even
+the celebrated Graham, in the days of his apprenticeship to Tompion, may
+have had some of these humble duties to perform. But if so they failed
+to dash his enthusiasm for his profession, for you see how well he
+profited by his teaching and what a master at clockmaking he finally
+became. He had always been an ingenious fellow interested in evolving
+mathematical instruments of all sorts."
+
+"Were his clocks as good as Tompion's?" queried Christopher.
+
+"As to that, the two were pretty well matched," was the answer. "Graham,
+however, concentrated most of his skill on watches while Tompion put the
+major part of his talent into long-case clocks which were unrivaled.
+For, by this time, with the gradual development and improvement of clock
+machinery, it was possible to make grandfather, or long-case, clocks
+that kept excellent time. The defects of the old wheel escapement of the
+thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries were, as I told you,
+remedied in part by the invention of the fusee, a device for equalizing
+the movement. Then came the conversion of such clocks into pendulum
+clocks--no very difficult matter. One of the balls on the verge was
+removed, thereby making the verge longer and increasing the weight of
+the other ball. Then such clocks, together with those having a crown
+wheel escapement, went in turn out of vogue and the anchor escapement
+ushered in what is commonly known as the grandfather clock. It was in
+producing this particular type of timepiece that Tompion and Graham
+excelled. The pendulum was hung from a thin steel spring instead of
+being placed on an axis carrying pallets and could swing without
+friction."
+
+"And whose scheme was that?"
+
+"It is generally conceded that a Dutchman by the name of Fromanteel
+brought the modern pendulum idea into England. You will recall that
+early in clock history there were some pendulums of a very
+unsatisfactory nature in use--pendulums that were regulated by weights
+and dangled at the back or across the front of old brass clocks."
+
+"I remember, yes."
+
+"Well, it was that same pendulum principle carried to greater perfection
+and now scientifically applied which made the present grandfather, or
+long-case, clock possible. Certainly Fromanteel did a vast service to
+English clockmaking when he brought this solution of the pendulum
+problem to London, for with the anchor, or dead-beat escapement,
+combined with a long pendulum terminating in a heavy bob, the force of
+gravity caused such slight variation that the motion was practically
+harmonic and had only a very minor effect on the clock. For a long case,
+you see, has an exceedingly confined arc of oscillation because the
+swing of the pendulum is so limited. It is this length of pendulum
+together with its almost harmonic motion which results in the excellent
+time-keeping done by clocks of the "grandfather" class. The time a
+pendulum takes to vibrate always depends on its length--that is, the
+distance between the center of suspension and the center of gravity of
+the bob."
+
+McPhearson paused to hold to the light a small brass pivot he was
+filing.
+
+"Just here," continued he, "we stumble upon still another of the
+multiple tribulations of the clockmaker. If a big clock is expected to
+do any very fine work the latitude of the place in which it is to be put
+must be taken into consideration. For example, experiment has proved
+that the length of a pendulum vibrating seconds at London will not serve
+as accurately in other latitudes, because according to the laws of
+gravity the length of seconds increases in a specific ratio as we
+advance from the equator toward the poles. The clockmaker must,
+therefore, take care to regulate the length of his pendulum to
+correspond with this law."
+
+"Great Scott! Why, I never dreamed there was so much to clockmaking!"
+gasped the astonished Christopher.
+
+"Oh, the making of a finely adjusted, close-running clock is far more of
+a science than a trade, laddie. It isn't just making a lot of wheels
+that will turn, hands that will point, or a mechanism that will
+tick--wonderful as all that is," asserted McPhearson.
+
+"I don't believe most persons realize it isn't."
+
+"Those who dip below the surface and are better informed know the truth;
+as for the others--we must not expect too much of a hurrying world, son.
+Any branch of knowledge takes us very far if we follow it to the end.
+Why, look at me! I have spent all my life with clocks and what do I know
+about them?"
+
+"A great deal," was the prompt retort.
+
+"Very little, my boy; very little indeed!" sighed the old man. "I
+couldn't make one. Nevertheless I have had great pleasure in hunting
+down what I have learned. It is an interesting subject and one that
+never seems to exhaust itself. For all the wonders of my trade are not
+yet told. When, for instance, they put the clock on the Metropolitan
+Life Insurance building here in New York an undreamed-of pinnacle in
+clock construction was reached. There was a time when the clock on the
+London Houses of Parliament was the last word in the art--a veritable
+triumph of the horologe. Not only was it the largest timepiece in the
+world, but it seemed then the most miraculous."
+
+"What date was that?"
+
+"Back in 1860. Even I remember what a sensation this masterpiece
+created. It was designed by E. B. Dennison, afterward Lord Grimthorpe,
+and was placed one hundred and eighty feet above the ground--some
+halfway up the tower of one of the buildings. Now that fact in itself
+made the undertaking difficult, for the weather always has its effect on
+a clock, and to put one in such an exposed position created a problem at
+the outset. Moreover, perched up there in the sight of all London to
+serve as the chief timekeeper of the city, it could not be allowed to
+indulge in whims and caprices lest the populace be led astray by its
+inaccuracies and turn to cursing it. No, if it was to be there at all it
+must furnish correct information. Londoners could not afford to lose
+their trains, be late to their appointments, or miss their tea." The
+Scotchman uttered a soft laugh.
+
+"Yes," continued he, as if the fancy pleased him, "when you are posted
+up in such a conspicuous spot as that, every one of your backslidings
+will be common property. And for that reason not only the reputation of
+the clock itself but that of its maker was at stake. Moreover, since the
+height at which the dial was to be set was so great, every part of the
+timepiece had to be of mammoth size."
+
+"Of course it had," agreed Christopher. "I had almost forgotten that."
+
+"A pretty gigantic project it was for a clockmaker, I can tell you,"
+went on McPhearson. "Well, at last the clock was made and the scale of
+its dimensions sounded like a page from Gulliver's Travels. Each of the
+dials was of opalescent glass set in a framework of iron and was
+twenty-two feet or more in diameter. The figures that indicated the
+hours were two feet long and the minute spaces a foot square. Three sets
+of works were required to drive the various divisions of the mechanism:
+one moved the hands; another struck the hours; and still another rang
+the chimes. As for the pendulum--ah, here was a pendulum indeed! It was
+thirteen feet long and weighed seven hundred pounds."
+
+"Jove!" murmured Christopher.
+
+"Some pendulum, eh? What wouldn't the old clockmakers--Tompion, Quare,
+Fromanteel, Graham and the rest have given to see it! They probably
+never even imagined a clock of such proportions."
+
+"Neither did I!" his companion announced. "How often did this giant have
+to be wound up?"
+
+"The clock part was wound once a week; the striking part twice. And
+speaking of the striking part, you may like to know that the hour bell
+weighed thirteen tons and the four quarter-hour bells eight tons."
+
+"Isn't it the biggest clock ever made?"
+
+"It is probably one of the most powerful and most accurate of the large
+ones," nodded McPhearson, "although others are to be found with bigger
+dials. But it is no longer the largest clock in the world because since
+it was constructed several American rivals for that honor have arisen.
+One of them is right here in your own little old city of New York and
+the other is located on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River."
+
+But Christopher's mind was still intent on the London masterpiece.
+
+"How much do you suppose the English clock cost?" speculated he. "A
+fortune, I'll bet."
+
+"I can tell you, for I happen to recall the figures," replied
+McPhearson. "Its price was $110,000."
+
+"And cheap at that," grinned Christopher. "At least, I wouldn't
+undertake to produce it for that money."
+
+"Nor I," echoed the Scotchman, returning the lad's smile. "I suppose
+when it was made nobody ever expected to see it equaled. And yet such
+strides are we making in science that here we are with a clock that is
+in many ways even more miraculous."
+
+"You mean the one on the Metropolitan Life Insurance building?"
+
+"The same," was the quick answer. "Surely you must grant that to be
+ahead of the one in London. It is interesting also to note how these
+two mammoth timepieces differ. The dial of our New York clock, instead
+of being of glass, is, as you know, of concrete faced with blue and
+white mosaic tiling. The figures indicating the hours are four feet high
+and the minute marks ten inches in diameter. The minute hands are twelve
+feet from center to tip and together weigh a thousand pounds; while the
+hour hands measure eight feet four inches from center to tip and weigh
+seven hundred pounds apiece."
+
+"Mercy on us! I didn't realize it was such a whale of a thing!"
+
+"_A prophet is not without honour save in his own country_," laughed the
+old clockmaker. "Here you sit almost under the shadow of one of the
+largest timepieces in the universe and fail to appreciate the wonder
+that towers above your head. Well, well! Perhaps you will treat your
+native land with more respect after this. Certainly you will regard this
+Metropolitan Life clock with greater awe and bless your stars that one
+of its hands hasn't blown down on top of you. Think of those gigantic
+pointing fingers being built on iron frames sheathed with copper and
+made to revolve on roller bearings!"
+
+"I give you my word I _shall_ think of it the next time I look up at
+them," responded Christopher. "How on earth can they make such a
+tremendous machine go?"
+
+"It is controlled automatically from the director's room, where a master
+clock also controls a hundred others scattered throughout the building.
+This same mechanism controls in addition various electrical devices,
+such as signal bells, etc. It is all very wonderful. And the half is not
+told yet, for the tricks it performs at night are almost more amazing
+than are those it performs by day."
+
+"I seldom see it in the evening," Christopher explained. "We are always
+starting out into the suburbs just when New York is beginning to wake
+up."
+
+"New York can hardly be called asleep at any time," McPhearson chuckled,
+"so I must take your lamentation with a grain of salt. But it is rather
+of a pity you shouldn't have had the chance to see that clock after
+dark. Not that it isn't beautiful in the daylight. Its chimes certainly
+ring just as sweetly one time as another. Nevertheless I enjoy them best
+after the city gets a little bit quiet (which it seldom does until well
+toward morning). Those chimes, remember, are a replica of the set at
+Cambridge, England, and play a theme composed by Handel, the old
+composer."
+
+"Why on earth didn't some one tell me all this before?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know, unless your dad was too busy or assumed you had
+read of the clock in the newspapers."
+
+"It is never safe to assume I know anything," retorted Christopher
+naively. "I know such a queer collection of stuff, you see. It's odd,
+isn't it, the truck that sticks in your memory? If I could only remember
+things that are worth while as easily as I often do things that aren't I
+should know quite a lot."
+
+"That is the way with all of us, laddie," the old man on the work bench
+confessed. "I myself would gladly part with a vast deal I have acquired
+and never yet found a use for."
+
+"We ought to have mental rummage sales and bundle out the rubbish we
+don't need," Christopher remarked.
+
+The Scotchman hailed the suggestion with delight.
+
+"That would be a capital scheme," acclaimed he. "The only trouble would
+be to find purchasers for our outgrown ideas."
+
+"Oh, somebody would like them," put in Christopher cheerfully. "Mother
+says there are always people who will buy anything that is cheap no
+matter what it is."
+
+"But my old ideas are not cheap ones," objected the clockmaker. "On the
+contrary, some of them cost me a great deal in the day of them; they are
+simply worn out and old-fashioned."
+
+"They'd sell--never fear. Mother declares people buy the most impossible
+truck. A thing is seldom so bad that nobody wants it."
+
+"Then that is certainly what we must do with our intellectual junk," was
+McPhearson's instant answer. "Suppose we advertise a sale of it? I will
+cheerfully part with 'The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck' which I
+committed to memory when I was eight years old. I'd sell it outright or
+would exchange it for one of Shakespeare's sonnets."
+
+Christopher greeted the whimsey with a laugh.
+
+"Now I," began he, "would sell or swap the water routes from most of
+our inland cities. We had to learn them when I studied geography and as
+I have never wanted to ship goods from St. Paul to Philadelphia, for
+example, I have found no use for them."
+
+"You may some day."
+
+"I'll risk it. If I did want them I could, perhaps, buy them back,"
+flashed Christopher.
+
+"What price would you set upon such possessions?"
+
+"You mean the water routes? Well, it cost me a good deal of trouble to
+memorize them; still, I'd be glad to let them go cheap and be rid of
+them. I'd trade them for--let me see--an equal number of facts about
+wireless. With them I'd throw in all my--" he stopped suddenly.
+
+"All your what?"
+
+"I was going to say all my Latin but changed my mind," the boy replied.
+"I guess, everything considered, I'd better keep that. It might come in
+handy sometime. It did the other day."
+
+"Oh, I'd keep your Latin, by all means," the Scotchman agreed.
+
+A pause, weighted with humorous imaginings, fell between them until
+Christopher broke out:
+
+"Mr. McPhearson!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"How would you like to swap some more information about that clock on
+the Metropolitan Life building for my water routes?"
+
+Gravely the clockmaker reflected.
+
+"I'm afraid I haven't much more use for water routes just at present
+than you have," answered he. "I will, however, make a bargain with you.
+I will advance to you some more of what I know about that clock, if you
+will pledge yourself to let me have the water routes should I require
+them. Is that a bargain?"
+
+"I'll sign up to that," came without hesitation from the lad. "In fact,
+after thinking it over, I guess it would be wiser for me not to agree to
+deliver the goods immediately. I'll have to hunt them up and--and--dust
+them first," concluded he with an impish grimace.
+
+"I certainly should insist they be handed over in good condition,"
+asserted McPhearson. "That would be only fair since what I give you in
+return is new and up to date. This clock on the insurance building is
+one of the most unique timepieces yet made. You cannot expect to receive
+information about it without offering something pretty valuable in
+exchange."
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"That water route from St. Paul, for instance--I should never accept it
+if it began well and afterward became vague and uncertain; and should
+you break it off before you reached Philadelphia and excuse yourself by
+telling me that you had forgotten it--"
+
+"You broke off about the clock, you know," interrupted Christopher.
+
+"Yes. Nevertheless, I cannot be accused of having forgotten the
+information, and to prove it I will say that what I intended to add was
+that at night the numerals on the dial are not only illuminated but a
+flashlight from the tower sends out the time to those too far away
+either to see the face of the clock or hear it strike. A series of white
+flashes mark the hours, and the quarter hours are indicated by red
+flashes. Out over the land shoot these lights--out over the sea too. It
+is a mighty beacon--a great, throbbing, live thing that from its place
+high above the city keeps constant watch and slumbers not nor sleeps."
+
+Christopher looked into the old man's eyes.
+
+"I don't believe," ventured he, with a wistful expression, "it would be
+fair to swap any of the stuff I know for yours. You see, the things you
+have stored away in your mind are so much--so much finer."
+
+"They weren't at first, laddie," returned McPhearson kindly. "I gathered
+a deal of worthless material before it occurred to me I could improve
+its quality. Then one day I said to myself, 'Why isn't it just as
+possible to collect beautiful and interesting thoughts as to collect
+stamps, or china teapots, or anything else?' So I set about weeding out
+the good from the unprofitable and found the scheme worked perfectly. If
+you don't believe it, try the plan yourself sometime, sonny."
+
+"I'm going to," affirmed Christopher with earnest emphasis.
+
+The Scotchman bent to file the tooth of a small brass wheel.
+
+"Before we drop the subject of giant clocks," continued he presently, "I
+must warn you not to forget the monster newly set up by the Colgates on
+their building that skirts the Jersey shore of the Hudson. It is a
+veritable Titan with a dial fifty feet in diameter and hands measuring
+thirty-seven and a quarter feet and twenty-seven and a half feet in
+length. For miles down New York harbor it is visible, a formidable
+contestant for world supremacy."
+
+"Clocks seem to grow bigger and bigger, don't they?" mused the boy.
+
+"I hope they grow better and better--a far finer achievement, to my way
+of thinking," was the craftsman's answer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CLOCKS ON LAND AND CLOCKS AT SEA
+
+
+Christmas came and went, January passed, and February was well on its
+way, and still Christopher did not tire of coming into the city with his
+father each morning and spending the day at the store. He had found many
+little ways in which he could be useful and as a result he now had
+something to do to keep him from becoming bored and discontented. He
+could, for example, help deliver the sorted mail to the different
+departments and do various minor errands for McPhearson, toward whom he
+had come to entertain a genuine affection.
+
+In the meantime he had been every week to see the oculist and each time
+had been commended for his patience and urged to be resigned to idleness
+a little longer.
+
+"You'll gain in the end if you hold off until the year is out," said the
+doctor. "Remember, you have in all probability a long stretch of years
+ahead of you to the very last moment of which you will need your eyes.
+Therefore you cannot afford to injure them thus early in the game, for
+if you do you will never be able to beg, borrow, or steal another pair.
+What do a few short months amount to when weighed against a lifetime?"
+
+It was a telling argument and immediately the lad sensed the worth of
+it.
+
+"I figure you're right, Doctor Corbin," responded he bravely. "I'll peg
+away at being lazy for another spell. But don't keep me loafing any
+longer than you have to, will you? You see, just lately I have begun to
+be anxious to get back to my books. There are lots of things I want to
+hunt up and learn."
+
+"Blessings brighten as they vanish, eh?" smiled the physician. "Well, it
+is something to have that impulse. Hold on to it; and when at last you
+have your books don't forget how fortunate you are to have them."
+
+"I sha'n't--believe me!"
+
+Accordingly Christopher gathered together his courage and as he himself
+expressed it _bucked up_ to endure a prolonged period of inactivity. "I
+shall depend on you to cheer me up, Mr. McPhearson," announced he after
+recounting to the sympathetic Scotchman the doctor's decision. "If it
+weren't for you, I don't know what I'd do."
+
+"Pooh! Nonsense! Non--_sense_! You'd find ways enough to amuse yourself
+without the help of an old fossil like me, I guess," blustered the
+clockmaker. Nevertheless it was plain to be seen the words pleased him,
+for he was a kind man who enjoyed doing a service for another. Moreover,
+Christopher had worn a path to his lonely heart and his boyish gladness
+transformed each day into a novelty to be anticipated.
+
+Once when Mr. Burton had remained in the city to attend a dinner at the
+Lotus Club, McPhearson had persuaded his employer to allow the boy to
+go home with him and remain until the function was over. Ah, what an
+evening the two cronies had together that night! The Scotchman grilled
+chops in his tiny kitchenette and baked macaroni too; and made ambrosial
+hot chocolate. Then there were hot rolls, fancy cakes, and ice cream
+that appeared as it by magic from goodness only knew where. And
+afterward, when the little flat had been tidied up (a task in which
+Christopher shared), McPhearson got out his flute and such wonderful old
+Scotch airs as he played! "Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie Doon," "Annie
+Laurie," "Mary of Argyle," "The Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee"--he knew them
+all and scores of others.
+
+There was a fire in the microscopic fireplace, there was a box of candy,
+and there was plenty of fun and good talk. Later they had gone to see
+the big Metropolitan Life Insurance clock and watch its shooting red and
+white lights. Seldom had Christopher passed so happy an evening or one
+that flew by so quickly.
+
+When Mr. Burton came with the taxi to take him home it was almost
+unbelievable it could really be eleven o'clock.
+
+"I hope my son hasn't tired you all out, McPhearson," said the head of
+the firm. "It was very kind of you to bother with him."
+
+"It was kind of you to let him come."
+
+    [Illustration: Ah, what an evening the two cronies had together
+     that night. _Page_ 164.]
+
+That was all the old man vouchsafed. He wasn't one given to talking much
+about the things he cherished deeply. But more than once after the boy
+had gone he recalled the picture the lad had made sitting there in the
+firelight; remembered the brightness of his smile and the gayety of his
+laughter. Even a flute could not furnish music as light-hearted. It was
+long since anything so joyous had echoed through the dim, dingy rooms.
+He wished he could fool himself into believing he was as young as he
+felt that night.
+
+"Perhaps," observed he the next day, when Christopher referred to the
+evening, "your father will let you come again sometime. He may have
+another dinner or a meeting of some sort that will keep him in town."
+
+"I wish he would," exclaimed Christopher heartily.
+
+They were sitting together at the repairing bench, the clockmaker busy
+with an old chronometer.
+
+"That's a new variety of puzzle, isn't it?" commented the boy, motioning
+toward it.
+
+"Oh, I tinker a chronometer once in a while," McPhearson answered. "I
+don't get them often, though."
+
+"What on earth are they for?"
+
+"You don't know?" The Scotchman raised his brows with surprise.
+
+"Not really. I associate them vaguely with the sea and ships."
+
+"So far, so good," granted the elder man.
+
+"But the trouble is that's as far as I can go," Christopher said.
+
+"Bless me!" ejaculated McPhearson.
+
+"I meant once to find out all about chronometers; but before I got
+started something interrupted me and I forgot it. I wasn't much
+interested in them anyhow, I'm afraid."
+
+"And now you'd like a few points, eh?"
+
+"Yes. I know I shall get a great deal better idea of them if you tell
+me," was the reply.
+
+"If you weren't an American and I a Scotchman, I should say you were an
+Irishman," laughed his companion.
+
+"Why?" demanded Christopher innocently.
+
+"Because you sound as if you had kissed the Blarney Stone. Well, if you
+wish to learn about chronometers you have chosen a somewhat difficult
+subject. It leads pretty far, you see. However, I will do my best to
+give you at least a few facts about them. In the first place the earth
+actually revolves on its axis in twenty-three hours, fifty-six minutes,
+and four seconds. We commonly divide our day, however, into twenty-four
+hours and let it go at that. But astronomers reckon more accurately.
+They call our day the solar day and instead of having a clock with
+twelve figures on it as we do, they use one with twenty-four."
+
+Christopher glanced up with a smile.
+
+"Why be so fussy about things like minutes and seconds?"
+
+"Because sometimes such things as minutes and seconds make a great deal
+of difference. You may remember that when we were talking of sundials I
+told you they were not exact timekeepers."
+
+"I do remember."
+
+"You see, we reckon our day by two counts: one of them begins at noon
+and goes on--one, two, three, four o'clock, etc.--up to midnight; the
+other begins at midnight and ends at noon."
+
+"That's simple enough. I get that all right."
+
+"Now people didn't always do that. There were other countries that
+planned their day differently. The ancient Babylonians, for instance,
+began their day at sunrise; the Athenians and Jews at sunset; and the
+Egyptians and Romans at midnight."
+
+"How funny! I thought that of course it had always been done as we do
+it," confessed Christopher, with frank astonishment.
+
+"Not at all. Our present system of time-keeping has been evolved out of
+the past and, like many other such heirlooms, is the result of a vast
+amount of study. Centuries ago nobody knew how to reckon time or what to
+reckon it by. Some computed it by the sun and had what is known as the
+solar day--a span of twenty-four hours; others figured it by the moon
+and got a lunar day of twenty-four hours and fifty minutes; while still
+others resorted to the stars or constellations and reached a result
+known as sidereal time, a day of twenty-three hours, fifty-six minutes.
+Now you see there is quite a bit of difference in these various
+reckonings. The difference might not matter so much on land, but when
+one is at sea and has to compute latitude and longitude, it matters a
+vast deal."
+
+"Oh!" A light of understanding was slowly dawning on the boy.
+
+"Now," went on McPhearson, "apparent solar time is dependent on the
+motion of the sun and is shown by the sundial; mean solar time, on the
+other hand, is shown by a correct clock; and the difference between the
+two--or the difference between apparent time and mean time is
+technically known as the equation of time, and is set forth in a
+nautical almanac published by the government."
+
+McPhearson waited a moment.
+
+"And that's what mariners use?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then," hazarded Christopher after a moment's thought, "there really is
+exact time and common time."
+
+"Broadly speaking, yes," acquiesced McPhearson. "Or in other words there
+is time scientifically measured and time that is measured by man-made
+laws. The difference, as I told you, is of more importance to
+astronomers and mariners than to anybody else; and yet the puzzle for
+many centuries balked those who sought to establish a perfect system of
+time-keeping. As better ships were built and adventurous persons began
+to sail the ocean both for trade and conquest, captains soon discovered
+the stars and the compass could not be relied upon to furnish them the
+reliable information they needed in locating their position. Therefore,
+about 1713 England offered a prize of L20,000 to any one who should
+invent a timekeeper sufficiently accurate to enable navigators to
+ascertain from it longitude at sea."
+
+The Scotchman paused to take from his table a box of tiny brass screws
+from which he selected one that was to his liking.
+
+"Now there was living at this period John Harrison, a Yorkshire
+clockmaker, who although quite a young man had made a clock with wooden
+works into which he had put a gridiron pendulum--a device he had thought
+out to overcome the difficulties resulting from atmospheric conditions.
+This clock was so skillfully adjusted that it did not vary a second a
+month. So you can see that despite the fact Harrison was not a member of
+the Clockmakers' Company he was certainly qualified to be."
+
+"And did he go after the prize money?"
+
+"Apparently the offer tempted him. Perhaps he not only desired to win
+the fortune offered but also wished the fun of solving the riddle the
+government propounded. At any rate, in 1728 he came to London prepared
+to present drawings of an instrument he felt certain would turn the
+trick and had not his friends deterred him he would have placed these
+sketches before the commission. Fortunately, however, he had excellent
+advisers (among whom was honest John Graham) and they assured him he
+would stand a far better chance of securing a favorable hearing should
+he first construct the instrument of which he at present had nothing but
+pictures. Now such counsel as this was pretty disheartening to a young
+man who, fired with hope and ambition, had come all the way to London
+confidently expecting to have his plan hailed with joy when he arrived.
+Nevertheless Harrison was open-minded enough to accept his friends'
+guidance and acting upon it he went home again and worked for seven
+years on the instrument he had drawn out on paper."
+
+"And then did he bring it to London?" was Christopher's breathless
+demand.
+
+"Yes," affirmed McPhearson. "The contrivance, however, was by no means
+perfect. Still it showed sufficient promise to interest the
+commissioners and lead them to give Harrison permission to go to Lisbon
+on one of the king's ships; that he might correct his reckonings by
+taking practical observations at sea. Moreover they also paid him L5,000
+of the prize money to encourage him. This financial spur, together with
+the faith it represented, stimulated the patient instrument-maker to
+fashion a second timekeeper on which he spent four years of hard work.
+But even this one, although better than the first, failed to meet the
+demands, and he tried again, taking ten years to perfect a third. This
+was smaller and as it seemed to foreshadow good results he was awarded
+the gold medal annually presented by the Royal Society for the most
+useful nautical discovery thus far made. Yet notwithstanding this
+triumph the article he had produced did not suit him. Experience had, in
+the meantime, taught him a great deal, and after more corrections and
+improvements he came again before the committee and asked that the
+device he now had might be given practical trial."
+
+Christopher hitched his stool a little nearer.
+
+"Now governments, like elephants and mastodons, move slowly, and by the
+time the coveted permission was granted poor Harrison was well-nigh
+seventy years old and instead of setting out on an ocean voyage for
+Jamaica he was forced to surrender his place to his son, William, whom
+he had trained up as one of his apprentices."
+
+"Poor old duffer! I'll bet he was disappointed," came sympathetically
+from Christopher. "Think of his having to stay at home and miss the fun
+of seeing how his invention was working!"
+
+"It was pretty tough," agreed McPhearson. "William, in the meantime,
+sailed out of Portsmouth harbor and after eighteen days of voyaging the
+vessel, supposed by ordinary calculation to be 13 deg. 50' west of that
+port, was by Harrison's watch 15 deg. 19', whereupon the captain of the ship
+immediately cried that it was worthless. If William had not been a chip
+of the old block and had inherited some of his father's courage, wisdom,
+and persistence, he would have lost his nerve at this crisis and allowed
+himself to come home beaten. But evidently he believed in the venture he
+had in hand. Perhaps, too, the thought of how disappointed his poor old
+dad would be were he to return spurred him to hold on with bulldog
+tenacity. So instead of being cowed by this apparent failure he insisted
+that if Madeira were correctly charted on the captain's map, it would be
+sighted the next day. So convincing was his prediction that the
+reluctant officer at length consented to continue on his course, and
+sure enough the following morning there loomed Madeira just as William
+had prophesied! Having won out on this forecast, William kept on
+predicting just where the other islands would be and behold, one after
+another they came into sight!"
+
+"Hurray!" cried Christopher.
+
+"Well, after a trip of sixty-one days the _Deptford_ reached Port Royal,
+and the chronometer (for that is what this new sort of watch really was)
+proved to be only about nine seconds slow. Then followed the voyage
+home. William Harrison had been gone five months in all--five months
+which to his poor, anxious old father must have seemed five years in
+length. During that entire time the chronometer had varied only one
+minute and five seconds."
+
+"Pooh! That wasn't anything to get hot over," exploded Christopher.
+
+"And yet a variation as great as that represented an error of eighteen
+miles--a big enough distance to admit of a ship being run on no end of
+rocks and shoals."
+
+"I didn't realize it amounted to so many miles," was the sober reply.
+
+"Probably the error even in miles did not shock people of that time as
+much as it would us, for they were accustomed to inaccuracies. Moreover
+such a record was worlds better than anything previously known. Yet
+notwithstanding this fact, the commissioners haggled over awarding the
+prize money and after advancing another L5,000 insisted that William
+make a second trip."
+
+"Shucks!"
+
+McPhearson paid no heed to the interruption.
+
+"This time," continued he, "the undaunted young clockmaker embarked on
+an English man-of-war, the _Tartar_, and sailed for the Barbados, the
+chronometer gaining only forty-three seconds; and then back he came on
+the _New Elizabeth_, making the round trip of one hundred fifty-six
+days with only a total gain of fifty-four seconds in his father's
+instrument."
+
+"Bravo! And so old Harrison at last got his money," asserted Christopher
+with a satisfied sigh.
+
+"Not yet. You move too fast, sonny. Governments do not bestow fortunes
+at your pace. Not they! This time the commissioners paid over a third
+L5,000, joining with it the demand that the elder Harrison explain to a
+company of experts exactly how his invention worked. In our day a man
+would have protected himself with a patent before he surrendered the
+requested information but the universe of the eighteenth century was
+less sophisticated. Patiently Harrison told his inquisitors everything
+they wanted to know and in 1765 they declared themselves satisfied with
+the instrument in every detail."
+
+"Well, I should think it was high time!" scoffed the boy.
+
+The Scotchman smiled at his indignation.
+
+"Oh, don't imagine yourself through with the story yet," said he, "for
+even now more conditions were enjoined. Before the balance of the prize
+money was paid, one of the experts was appointed to construct a
+chronometer like Harrison's for the purpose not only of finding out
+whether every claim he made for it was true, but also to assure the
+board that other persons beside this one old man could make such an
+instrument. The fulfillment of this final condition consumed three
+years."
+
+"Oh, rats! I should have told them they could keep their money--the old
+grannies!" jeered his listener wrathfully.
+
+"They had to be sure, you know."
+
+"But poor Harrison! What was he doing in the meantime?"
+
+"Growing to be a very old man, alas!" McPhearson answered in a saddened
+voice. "It was not until 1773 that the last of the L20,000 for which he
+had so valiantly struggled was given him."
+
+"I'm thankful he got it and hadn't died."
+
+"He died three years later--an old man of eighty-three. Nevertheless he
+lived long enough to see his dream fulfilled. Sixty years of his life he
+had devoted to experimenting with and perfecting his chronometer. It was
+a great service to the world--a deed that influenced not only all
+subsequent clockmaking but ultimately all marine enterprises. It also,
+by making navigation easier, saved innumerable lives. Other scientists
+followed and built on his discoveries until now, thanks to them all, the
+sea is practically as safe and familiar a spot to dwell upon as is the
+land. No longer are vessels at a loss to know where they are. With the
+finely adjusted nautical instruments at their command, scientific books,
+wireless communication, and the correct time sent out each day by radio
+they have no excuse for failing to make and maintain accurate
+observations."
+
+"But poor old Harrison--I cannot help regretting he had to wait so long
+for his prize money," bewailed Christopher.
+
+"I rather think, laddie, had you asked the inventor of the chronometer
+which gave him the greater satisfaction--the award the English
+Government paid him or the joy derived from successfully working out the
+puzzle it propounded--he would have told you that in his estimation,
+when weighed the one against the other, the money counted for
+nothing--nothing!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+HOW RUBIES, SAPPHIRES, AND GARNETS HELPED TO TELL TIME
+
+
+"Well, Christopher, what do you think of the jewelry business?" his
+father inquired one day after he had been for several months a regular
+visitor at the store.
+
+Christopher smiled.
+
+"I like parts of it very much," replied he. "The clocks and watches are
+all right. There's sense in those. I shouldn't mind a bit becoming a
+repairer if I could be as good a one as Mr. McPhearson. But the rings,
+bracelets and all those ruby-emerald-diamond fol-de-rols make me sick."
+
+"And yet you could have no fine watches without jewels--remember that."
+
+Abashed, the lad colored.
+
+"Oh, I know the best watches have their works dolled up with precious
+stones."
+
+"Scarcely _dolled up_, son," Mr. Burton answered.
+
+"I thought that was what they were put in for."
+
+"Just for ornament?"
+
+"Sure! To make the watches handsomer than those carried by common
+folks--dressier and more expensive."
+
+"You actually entertained that notion?" came quizzically from the head
+of the firm.
+
+"Yes, Dad."
+
+Mr. Burton gazed at his offspring dumbfounded and reproachful, his eyes
+saying as plainly as any words could, "That I should live to hear a son
+of mine give voice to such gross ignorance!" Then when he had conquered
+his amazement sufficiently to speak he gasped:
+
+"I'm afraid there are still facts that McPhearson will have to teach you
+before you can follow his trade."
+
+"No doubt there are a few," returned Christopher audaciously.
+
+"This matter of jeweled watches is one. How did it happen you never
+asked him why precious stones were set in the works of a watch?"
+
+"I thought I knew why."
+
+"He probably thought you did too; but apparently you don't. However,
+there is hope for you since you are willing to be honest and confess
+your ignorance. Indeed, I've no right to blame you. How should you know
+such a thing unless somebody took the trouble to tell you?" the lad's
+father amended. "Nevertheless, at first I could not but be surprised at
+the originality of your theory."
+
+"Then the jewels are not for decoration?"
+
+"Well, hardly!" responded Burton, Senior, with an amused shake of his
+head. "Way back about the year 1700 a Genevan watchmaker residing in
+London struggled to find some hard material in which to set watch pivots
+so they would not wear the works of the watch, and after much
+experimenting with different substances he hit upon the plan of
+drilling a hole in various kinds of gems and setting the pivots into
+those. Gems, as perhaps you are already aware, are among the hardest
+minerals we have. Therefore Facio, as the Swiss was called, proceeded to
+make a watch after this idea and in 1703 obtained a patent on it good
+for fourteen years. Then, two years later, when he found by experience
+how excellent and practical was his scheme, he petitioned that this
+grant be extended to cover a longer period.
+
+"Now all workmen, alas, are jealous for their own prestige and the
+artisans belonging to the London Clockmakers' Company were no exception
+to this rule. All of them were ready enough to seize greedily upon the
+bright ideas of any craftsman following their line of trade and they
+resented it bitterly if not allowed to do so. Moreover, that it was
+Nicolas Facio, a Swiss, and not one of their own number who had stumbled
+upon this clever device was galling indeed. Therefore, I regret to say,
+they opposed his application for the extending of his patent on the
+ground that the jewel idea was not new. A member of their own guild,
+they insisted, had already constructed such a watch; and to prove the
+assertion they produced a timepiece with an amethyst gleaming from its
+works. Upon the presentation of this evidence the unlucky Facio's claim
+was immediately refused. Later on, however, it proved that the watch
+displayed by the zealous London gentlemen was not in the least similar
+to Facio's conception. The jewel had only been stuck on (in accordance
+with your own plan) and was not set into the works at all. Whether the
+fraud resulted from ignorance or was a deliberate attempt to deceive no
+one could say. Certainly in 1703 the London clockmakers had nothing with
+which to block Facio's application; if, therefore, in 1705 they had a
+jeweled watch, it looks much as if they must have deliberately prepared
+it as an argument against the Genevan's request being granted. What the
+facts were we shall probably never know; but at least poor Facio lost
+the glory due him for his invention. Since that time practically all
+watches have certain of their moving parts set in jewels to prevent wear
+to the bearings and make them run smoother. The more expensive watches
+contain many of these stones. It requires less power, you see, to drive
+a well-jeweled watch because of its velvet-like action. But at the same
+time all this studding of gems greatly increases the cost of making a
+good watch."
+
+"What a duffer I was to think the jewels were just to make the thing
+look pretty!" burst out Christopher, when his father had finished.
+
+"Don't come down on yourself too hard, son," Mr. Burton interposed
+kindly. "We all have to learn. But you can now understand, can't you,
+that the diamonds, rubies, and precious stones at which you jeered have
+their practical uses? A pivot or bearing revolving in a hole drilled in
+a garnet or other gem creates almost no friction and needs therefore
+only very little oil."
+
+"I can understand it now--yes, sir," returned Christopher meekly.
+
+"Of course in our day the price of jewels has gone up a great deal.
+There was a time when a full-jeweled watch did not begin to cost what it
+does now. However, we are free of certain other expenses the old
+watchmakers encountered," went on Mr. Burton. "For example, about the
+year 1800, when England was anxious to raise money for the treasury,
+William Pitt proposed that a tax be placed on the wearing of watches."
+
+"That's worse than having to pay a tax on theater tickets--a good
+sight!" jested Christopher.
+
+"It certainly meant the taxation of a very useful commodity; we should
+term it an indispensable one. At that period of history, though, watches
+and clocks were far less cheap and common and therefore Mr. Pitt may
+have classed them as luxuries and rated them as our government does
+perfumery. However that may be, his suggestion of levying two shillings
+sixpence on every silver watch and ten shillings on every gold one, with
+the additional tax of five shillings on every clock, went through."
+
+"I don't see why the English people stood for it," said the boy, his
+hereditary resentment against unjust taxation aroused.
+
+"They were pretty thoroughly vexed, I assure you," was the reply. "It
+meant, you see, very disastrous results for the horologists. In fact,
+even outside the trade feeling ran high. Not only were numberless
+excellent workmen thrown out of their jobs and the watchmaking industry
+given a general setback, but the public, just coming to appreciate the
+value of a good timepiece, was vastly inconvenienced. Many persons
+revolted and ceased to carry watches rather than pay the tax. Some did
+this as a protest; others because they could not afford the additional
+expenditure. In the meantime an article known as the Act of Parliament
+clock was made and put up in the taverns, inns, and coffee houses to aid
+customers and serve as an additional declaration against the Pitt tax.
+So general was public disapproval and so bitter the storm created that a
+year after the law had passed it had to be repealed."
+
+"That's the stuff! It ought to have been," cried young America
+fervently.
+
+"Yes, I agree with you. It certainly was a mistaken method for raising
+an income for the State. Once abolished, the industry slowly began to
+pick up again. Nevertheless, for all that, England never thrived at
+watchmaking as did France, Switzerland and our own nation. One reason
+was because she clung stubbornly to the old-fashioned fusee long after
+other people had abandoned it for the spring. There she made a great
+mistake. Still, after this Pitt tax was abolished, the craft began, as I
+said, to get on its feet again. Little by little machinery replaced hand
+labor and as more watches were turned out the price of them dropped.
+Also, as foreign trade increased, it became possible to import from
+other countries parts or the entire works of both clocks and watches.
+Perhaps had not this arrangement been so easy and simple, England would
+have been obliged to buck up and evolve a big watch industry of her own;
+as it was she followed the less difficult path and never went into the
+manufacture on a large scale with factories and all that."
+
+"How about the French?" Christopher inquired.
+
+"The French, no one can deny, were very ingenious watchmakers. To begin
+with, they had artistic ideas and great cleverness in producing
+beautiful and unique designs. The wrist watch, held by thousands of
+people to be such a boon, was of French invention. But it was the Swiss
+who were the master watchmakers of the Old World. A French horologer
+moved to Switzerland, carrying his trade with him, and as a result there
+soon grew up in Geneva a guild of workmen not to be outranked. There had
+been watchmakers there before, but the standards this guild created
+established a quality of work hitherto unknown. Men learned their trade
+and excelled in it until every part of a Swiss watch, one might almost
+say, was turned out by an expert. Some artisans made nothing but small
+wheels, some large ones; some fashioned pivots, some drilled jewels in
+which to set them. Afterward the watch was assembled, as we call it--all
+its parts being gathered together, put in place, and adjusted. A Geneva
+watch thus constructed bore what was practically the trademark of
+excellence. There was nothing finer on the market."
+
+"Were all Swiss watches equally good?" inquired Christopher.
+
+"As a general thing a Swiss watch could be depended on. However,
+different cities differed in output. None of them maintained the high
+standard Geneva established, although Neuchatel, its closest rival, made
+a great many fine and beautiful watches. In other centers, too, the
+trade was carried on successfully. But it remained for our own country
+to develop a vast factory system where every part of a watch was
+constructed beneath one roof. This innovation, together with the fact
+that eventually watches came to be made on regulation scales with
+interchangeable parts, greatly bettered as well as increased watch
+production."
+
+"I've quite a curiosity to know how this big factory system and in fact
+the whole clock and watch industry got started in America," the boy
+observed.
+
+His father smiled.
+
+"That," replied he, "is, as Kipling says, another story, and a long one
+too. I don't know that I myself could follow every step of it. But you
+will find McPhearson can. So seriously has he taken his profession that
+he is not to be floored by anything in time-keeping history. Ask him to
+tell you what you wish to know."
+
+"He does seem to be mighty well up in his trade, doesn't he?"
+acknowledged the boy, pleased to hear this tribute to his friend. "He
+has collected quite a few interesting things related to it, too. The
+night I was there he showed me a lot of old watch papers he has been
+years picking up. He told me that long ago, when watches were thicker
+than they are now, there was a space left between the covers and inside
+it people put all sorts of things--pictures, small designs embroidered
+or painted on satin, mottoes, figures pricked on paper until they made
+raised patterns, poems, and portraits."
+
+"So McPhearson has some of those, has he? Well, well! Sometime I must
+ask him about them," Mr. Burton said. "The custom of carrying such
+souvenirs was quite common in England at the time. If a man owned a fine
+ship or was interested in one, he had a small picture of her painted to
+put inside the cover of his watch; or he carried a likeness of his wife
+or sweetheart there. Sometimes, on the other hand, he was patriotically
+inclined and chose to devote this cherished space to a picture of the
+king or some national idol. Or maybe he was of literary bent and gave
+over the shrine to a religious text, a love poem, a maxim, or a moral
+admonition that he wished to keep daily before him. Even we ourselves
+often paste pictures in our watches. We have never, however, gone into
+the craze as the English of this particular era did. With them it was a
+fashionable fad that resulted in all manner of curious conceits. They
+had no kodaks, you see, and small pictures were rarer possessions then
+than now." Mr. Burton paused a moment to puff little rings of smoke
+thoughtfully into the air. "So McPhearson has made a collection of those
+old watch-papers, has he!" mused he. "Maybe he would loan them to us and
+let us exhibit them here at the store sometime. They are quite rare now
+and would be interesting."
+
+"I think he would be tremendously pleased to do so, Dad," responded
+Christopher. "He is far too modest ever to suggest doing it himself."
+
+"Oh, we should never know it if McPhearson had the Kohinoor right in his
+pocket. He would be the last person in the world to tell of it," laughed
+Mr. Burton. "I know what he is. I am also well aware that he has been
+very kind to you during these past few months. When the time comes
+right, I mean to let him know that I have not been blind to his interest
+and generosity."
+
+"I'd like above everything else to give him a--well, some sort of
+present when my eyes--_if_ my eyes ever get well again," faltered
+Christopher a trifle uncertainly.
+
+"Come, come, son! You mustn't talk in that strain," objected Mr. Burton,
+noticing the depression in the boy's tone. "Of course your eyes are
+coming out all right. Aren't they worlds better already?"
+
+The lad sighed.
+
+"The doctor says they are," replied he wearily.
+
+"Then what are you fussing about?" blustered Burton, Senior. "You've no
+cause to be downhearted, my son. Why, when you get back to school you
+will bound ahead like a trooper. You will find that in a few months you
+will make up all you've lost--see if you don't; and I believe you will
+enjoy studying, too, after being so long deprived of books."
+
+"I know I shall see more sense in doing it than I ever did before,"
+asserted Christopher with earnestness. "Somehow, since I've talked so
+much with Mr. McPhearson, learning things seems more worthwhile."
+
+"You like the old Scotchman, don't you?"
+
+"He's a brick!"
+
+"Then you wouldn't consider it a hardship to be in his company for a
+while?"
+
+"How--_in his company_?" asked the boy, glancing up quickly in puzzled
+surprise.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," was the vague retort.
+
+Nevertheless, as Mr. Burton turned his eyes away, Christopher noticed
+his father was smiling the meditative, enigmatic smile that he smiled
+once in a blue moon. It was usually when some particularly delightful
+reverie occupied his mind that his face took on that especial
+expression. The lad wondered what he was thinking about this time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CLOCKS IN AMERICA
+
+
+"Say, Mr. McPhearson, I wish you would tell me how clocks got to
+America," demanded Christopher when he and the old Scotchman were next
+together. "Of course the Pilgrim Fathers couldn't have brought them
+all."
+
+The watchmaker chuckled.
+
+"To hear folks boast about their ancestral possessions you would think
+the _Mayflower_ might also have brought a few hundred clocks in addition
+to all the bales of china, tables, chairs, and beds she is credited with
+transporting," replied he. "In point of fact, however, clocks did not
+reach these shores by any such romantic method. The early clockmakers
+came over here from England and Holland precisely as did other
+adventurous craftsmen. Often they were by trade gold or silversmiths who
+combined with other arts that of making clocks. As a result, while some
+of them were skilled horologers others merely turned out clocks as a
+side issue."
+
+"Most likely the people over here were thankful to get any clocks at
+all," the boy ventured.
+
+"Evidently there were clockmakers who worked on that theory," was
+McPhearson's dry answer. "Do not imagine, however, that I am condemning
+wholesale all the early clockmakers. On the contrary there were among
+them many really good workmen and every now and then a clock crops up
+that testifies to the skill of its dead-and-gone creator. Number
+Seventeen, for example, that you saw at Mr. Hawley's, was such a one. It
+was made, you remember, by John Bailey of Hanover, Massachusetts, and
+ever since the close of the eighteenth century it has ticked faithfully
+on, keeping excellent time. What more can you ask of a clock than that?
+And that is only one of many. Had we a complete list of all those early
+American makers, how interesting it would be! But, alas, they landed and
+scattered over the country, settling here and settling there, and with a
+few exceptions we can trace them only through town records. Two that
+have been successfully tracked down are William Davis, recorded as being
+in Boston in 1683; and Everardus Bogardus, who was located in New York
+in 1698. Also in 1707 there is mention of a James Patterson arriving
+from London and opening a Boston shop. Probably John Bailey, who was no
+doubt one of the clockmaking Baileys of Yorkshire, was a pioneer of a
+little later period. We can only list these men as we stumble upon their
+handiwork. Unfortunately, there are early clocks whose makers it is
+impossible to trace. A good many such timepieces were made for the
+interiors of churches or for their steeples. The church at Ipswich,
+Massachusetts, built in 1699, which at first had only a bell to mark the
+hours, arrived five years later at the dignity of a clock having both
+face and hands."
+
+"That sounds like the old days in England," exclaimed Christopher.
+
+"It was a turn backward," conceded McPhearson. "For a time our American
+clock history repeats in part the history of the race. We did not, to be
+sure, revert to water clocks; but our forefathers did not scorn to
+resort to sundials, sand glasses, and noon marks. And even after clocks
+made their appearance in this country they were at first very sparsely
+distributed. Many an amusing incident concerning them is found in the
+annals of various towns.
+
+"New Haven as early as 1727 put up a modest little church and in 1740
+decided to dignify it with a clock and bell. Accordingly Ebenezer
+Parmilee constructed for the parish a clock with brass works which the
+committee agreed to _try_. Fancy his amazement when the trial of his
+handiwork dragged on for two long years! The people had been keen to get
+the clock but having once secured it they were not, I fear, equally keen
+about paying for it. History relates that two of the congregation who
+had previously pledged themselves to shoulder a portion of the expense
+backed out when the final settlement was imminent, on the plea that they
+lived too far away either to see the clock or hear it strike."
+
+"They were squealers all right!" derided his listener.
+
+McPhearson turned on him with twinkling eyes.
+
+"Listen to the sequel," continued he. "In 1825 it was decided to have a
+second clock put up--one that would do better under the varying weather
+conditions--and a bargain was struck with Barzillai Davidson to take
+over the old clock, allowing forty dollars for its brass works; and set
+up in its place one with wooden works costing about three hundred
+dollars. This Mr. Davidson agreed to do. He therefore made the new
+clock, put it up, and then departed, carrying with him all the brass
+wheels, pivots and things the thrifty Ipswich fathers had discarded.
+Imagine if you can the chagrin of these worthies when later they heard
+that the canny clockmaker had reassembled the brass works they had
+bartered off and converted them into a timepiece which he forthwith sold
+in New York for six hundred dollars!"
+
+"That certainly was one on the town fathers," replied the lad, greeting
+the story with ringing laughter.
+
+"The saying goes that one has to get up in the morning to beat a Yankee
+or a Scotchman at a bargain," was McPhearson's quiet observation. "I
+could add to this tale many another one of the early clockmakers. They
+were ingenious old fellows. Indeed, they had to be. Some of them, to be
+sure, brought tools with them from England; but at best there were only
+a few such articles to be purchased even on the other side of the water
+where every type of machinery was scarce and still in its infancy.
+Therefore the majority of workmen had to fashion their own implements
+and make their clocks with only a hammer, file, and drill to help them.
+When you consider that, it is little short of a miracle they were able
+to produce articles that would keep time with even a reasonable degree
+of accuracy. But they contrived to--oh, yes, indeed! Of course they did
+not reach their best results immediately. It took a while. Still as
+clocks continued to make their appearance the product generally became
+better and better. An excellent one, put up in a church steeple in
+Newburyport in 1786, was made by Simon Willard, a great Massachusetts
+clockmaker of whom I will sometime tell you more. There was also a clock
+of Boston make on the Old South Meeting House sometime before 1768; and
+Gawen Brown, who made it, also made a long-case clock for the
+Massachusetts State House. There were good clockmakers in both New York
+and Philadelphia by the year 1750. So, you see, it was quite possible to
+buy either a watch or a clock fairly early in our colonial history."
+
+"What type of clock did such makers turn out?" was Christopher's
+interrogation.
+
+"For use in the homes the long-case clock was the style favored,"
+McPhearson responded. "Some of these had brass works and seconds
+pendulums and ran eight days, and others were thirty-hour clocks with
+works of wood. Nevertheless, although they were to be had, they were
+still something of a luxury and every one did not possess the money to
+purchase them; nor, indeed, were they held to be indispensable, many of
+the more conservative families preferring still to use the hourglass
+even as late as 1812."
+
+"That was the year of the war, wasn't it?" the lad hazarded.
+
+"Yes. The colonists had already had the Revolution on their hands and
+national affairs were in such a turmoil it was difficult for any one to
+put his mind on building up a trade. But after a while life calmed down
+into more tranquil grooves and then clockmaking, like other occupations,
+leaped into prosperity. New England, where many of the first clockmakers
+had originally settled, led the country in this industry as was natural
+she should, more improvements and inventions being perfected there than
+anywhere else. And Connecticut was the banner State. She boasted a large
+group of successful makers, any one of whom was a master at his craft.
+The names of some of them are Daniel Burnap, Thomas Harland, Eli Terry,
+Eli Terry, Junior, Silas Hoadley, Seth Thomas, and Chauncey Jerome.
+Harland was an expert from London and had a hand in training a goodly
+number of American apprentices, among whom the elder Terry was one. The
+career of the latter man reads like a fairy tale. In common with other
+early workers he labored at the disadvantage of having few tools. He
+may, perhaps, have owned a hand engine of the sort used in England at
+the period, but until he bethought him of using water power he had
+little else to aid him."
+
+"Did he make the long-case clock, too?" asked Christopher.
+
+"Yes. That style of clock, you see, provided space for a lengthy,
+slow-swinging pendulum. Nevertheless although it was a popular variety,
+it was anything but a convenient one to handle, being both bulky and
+awkward to transport. For this reason many such clocks were sold without
+cases--a custom borrowed from England--it being understood that buyers
+should furnish cases of their own. Only too often, alas, this part of
+the contract was never carried out and the unfortunate _wag-on-the-wall_
+(as this sort of timepiece was eventually dubbed) was hung up all
+unprotected from dust and dampness."
+
+"Do you mean to say they really christened clocks by that unearthly
+name?" asked Christopher incredulously.
+
+"_Wag-on-the-wall?_ Yes, indeed. That was the term they went by. Pedlars
+carried them round on horseback, riding from house to house and jolting
+them over the bad roads until it is a seven-days' wonder they went at
+all," was McPhearson's retort.
+
+"I never saw a clock of the sort," the lad mused.
+
+"They are rare now. I suppose most of them were discarded years ago. You
+see, since they had no cases they probably became clogged with dirt and
+wore out much sooner than did the protected long-case clocks; moreover,
+as they were both cheap and commonplace, nobody thought of keeping them
+after something better was procurable. Who would dream of laying them
+aside and cherishing them because they might in years to come be
+curiosities of historic value? Americans never keep anything, you know.
+It is a seven-days' wonder how they ever chanced to possess any
+heirlooms at all."
+
+Christopher smiled at the Scotchman's savage grumble.
+
+"Thomas Harland made quite a few of these wags-on-the-wall as well as
+some fine long-case clocks with works of brass," added the old man.
+
+"I suppose none of the makers could turn out very many clocks when every
+part of them had to be made by hand," was Christopher's thoughtful
+comment.
+
+"No, they couldn't. Moreover the demand for clocks was not great.
+Usually clockmakers either started only three or four or else began none
+until they received advance orders. If eight or ten good clocks that
+would sell for thirty-five or forty dollars apiece were turned out
+inside a year, the output was held to be a pretty fair one."
+
+"Nobody could get very rich on that income," came from the lad.
+
+"Not if that rate of production had continued. But it didn't, you see.
+After Eli Terry got to making clocks somewhere about 1795 he was clever
+enough to carry water from a near-by brook into his shop and supplement
+his tools and hand engine with water power. That was a stride ahead of
+the old way and opened before him all manner of undreamed-of
+possibilities, as a result of which he decided to make clocks on a
+tremendous scale. The type of thing he aimed to produce was a
+thirty-hour clock with wooden works and a pendulum vibrating seconds;
+and he figured that by purchasing more water power and larger buildings
+he would be able to make such clocks at the rate of a thousand or more a
+year and therefore turn them out for as little as four dollars apiece--a
+mad enterprise in that era of limited economic conditions."
+
+"Did the scheme make good?"
+
+"Not to the extent he had hoped," answered McPhearson. "He could, it is
+true, make clocks with wooden works much cheaper than with works of
+brass; but he did not feel satisfied with them and after the year was up
+he abandoned the venture. Hence this variety of clock of the elder Terry
+workmanship is rarely to be found. A somewhat crude timepiece it was,
+having no dial and only figures painted on the glass at the front of the
+case to indicate the hours. Peering through it one could see the works.
+But although Eli Terry himself gave up making this style of clock,
+others who had caught his idea did not and consequently a good many of
+them came into the market. In fact most of Terry's inspirations were
+thanklessly snatched up by his contemporaries, for in all his years of
+work he took out only one patent."
+
+A protest escaped Christopher's lips.
+
+"Patents were held in no very high esteem in those days," continued
+McPhearson. "People did not regard them in the light we do now. You
+remember how the old clockmakers of London blocked the path whenever a
+member of their craft attempted to secure one. They wished to share the
+benefits of everybody's ideas and therefore maintained that all
+inventions should be common property. As a rule those who clamored most
+loudly that this altruistic arrangement be promoted were those who never
+had any brilliant ideas of their own. As for the inventors
+themselves--they were as a rule too intent on the thing they were
+producing to pay any great heed to the money end of the project. Eli
+Terry was a man of this character. Therefore it came about that when
+others copied the circular saw he installed and made off with the other
+fruits of his brain he raised no protest."
+
+"Did he never make any more clocks with wooden works?" inquired
+Christopher.
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed! By 1814 he had worked out a fresh model of a wooden
+clock that he liked much better than his first. This one vibrated
+half-seconds and accordingly could be made with a pendulum short enough
+for the timepiece to be placed on a shelf as the former one had been. It
+was, however, of an entirely new design, having a dial in the upper
+half, painted glass in the door and an ornamental pillar at each side of
+the case. On top was a decorative scroll of wood and altogether it was a
+product so novel and well suited to the home that immediately the public
+greeted it with delight."
+
+"And I suppose all the other clockmakers promptly began to copy it,"
+interposed Christopher.
+
+"Precisely!" smiled the Scotchman. "The old wag-on-the-wall, and in many
+instances even the grandfather clock was consigned to the ash heap, and
+the pillar clock became the only clock worth having. It was,
+fortunately, within range of the most modest purse, costing only fifteen
+dollars. Mr. Terry now had more business than he could handle and he
+took in his two sons, Henry and Eli, Junior, to learn the trade and help
+him. Of course this wonderful commodity could not be imported because
+if taken to sea the dampness would swell its wooden wheels and ruin it.
+Nevertheless Terry did not care. He had all the trade he could manage
+right here at home. For twenty-five years his wooden clocks remained in
+vogue, a long period to hold the favor of the fickle public. Great
+credit is due Mr. Terry, too, for bringing such a clock into being, for
+a timepiece with wooden works meant the making of an entirely different
+set of tools, since it was impossible to use the same implements that
+were required in the making of clocks with works of brass."
+
+"I suppose it was a change in fashion that finally caused the downfall
+of the wooden-wheeled clock," was Christopher's comment.
+
+He ventured the remark with some pride.
+
+"No, in this particular case it wasn't. Capricious as fashion is, people
+liked the shelf clock much better than they did a tall clock that stood
+on the floor, and they would no doubt have continued to buy these clocks
+with wooden works had not sheet metal began to be manufactured about the
+year 1840. Instantly clockmakers saw the advantage of having sheet brass
+to work with. It was far better than the cast brass formerly used. An
+improvement, too, were the wire pinions--accessories much cheaper and
+simpler to produce than were those of wood. Therefore just as wood
+forced the old cast brass out of favor, so sheet brass now took the
+place of wood. Fortunately for Eli Terry, the drastic changes he had
+instituted in the fashioning of his clocks were equally possible of
+manufacture either from cast or sheet material."
+
+"No doubt by that time the whole country had gobbled up his inventions,"
+sniffed Christopher.
+
+"Yes. The best of his ideas had been seized and generally put into
+practice not only on this side of the ocean but also on the other. Two
+of his ideas were everywhere popular--the placing of the dial works
+between plates; and the mounting of the verge on a small steel pin
+inserted in one end of the short arm. But in spite of all the
+improvements he had made, Mr. Terry did not sit down with folded hands
+and feel there was nothing further to be done. Constantly he was alert
+for practical suggestions that should better his handiwork. For example,
+he heard that some one was making machinery according to a definite
+scale so that parts of it could be exchanged from one article to
+another. Why, thought he, should not the parts of a clock be made so
+they would be interchangeable? The plan proved a most excellent one and
+eventually it was universally adopted by other clockmakers. So you see,
+in one way and another, old Eli Terry contributed very materially to
+up-building the American clockmaking industry."
+
+"Did his sons go on making clocks?" was Christopher's inquiry.
+
+"Yes," nodded McPhearson. "In fact, ever so many clockmaking Terrys came
+after old Eli, and each added his bit to his ancestor's trade. One
+branched out and made tempered steel clock springs to take the place of
+the expensive springs of brass which were too costly to put into the
+cheaper grade of American-made clocks. Oh, yes, the Terrys kept up the
+traditions of the family--never fear about that! All that group of early
+Connecticut manufacturers did great service to the country in founding
+an industry that has brought to the United States a goodly portion of
+its business prosperity. Seth Thomas, Silas Hoadley, Chauncey Jerome are
+names that will not soon be forgotten; Terryville and Thomaston, two
+clockmaking centers, testify to that. As for Jerome--it was he who
+experimented with the painting of decorative glass and evolved that
+variety having a bronzed effect."
+
+"Oh, I know what you mean," interrupted Christopher with quick
+intelligence. "Our kitchen clock has glass like that in the door. And
+meantime, while Connecticut was doing so much, what were the other
+states up to?"
+
+"Let me think a moment," replied the Scotchman, half closing his eyes.
+"Well, Rhode Island never furnished much aid along the line of
+clockmaking; her talents seemed to lie in the direction of spinning
+yarn, making thread, and weaving textiles. What clocks she needed were
+imported or made by hand by local silversmiths. Pennsylvania, however,
+contributed her part. David Rittenhouse of Philadelphia was an
+exceedingly skillful clockmaker who not only had to his credit many fine
+timepieces but also some very complicated and remarkable ones.
+Christopher Sower, too, was a Pennsylvania man not to be overlooked."
+
+"Christopher, eh?" the boy repeated.
+
+"Yes. There are some exceedingly distinguished Christophers in history,
+remember. You and Columbus are not the only ones," asserted McPhearson,
+with dancing eyes. "This Christopher Sower, now, could turn not alone
+his hand but his well-trained brain in a variety of worthy directions.
+To begin with, before he settled in Germantown he had taken a doctor's
+degree in an Old World medical university. Therefore after becoming
+established on his American farm he not only tilled the land but he
+doctored his neighbors. In addition he took up clockmaking,
+paper-making, and the printing of books. And as if these vocations, or
+avocations, did not keep him busy enough, he supplemented them by trying
+to improve the manufacture of cast-iron stoves. Even he himself,
+perhaps, felt it necessary to offer apology for dabbling in so many
+trades, for when he came to put his name on his clocks he spelled it
+_Souers_."
+
+The lad smiled.
+
+"Then there was also in Pennsylvania a friend of Benjamin Franklin's,
+Edward Duffield, who made good clocks. Meantime in New Hampshire both
+Timothy Chandler of Concord and Luther Smith of Keene were successfully
+plying the clockmaking trade and creating beautiful old clocks. But it
+was Massachusetts that was Connecticut's strong second."
+
+"And what was being done there?"
+
+McPhearson put down his drill.
+
+"Were I to begin that story," protested he, "I should have no lunch
+to-day and you would have none either. Maybe some other time--"
+
+"To-morrow?" suggested Christopher, who had no intention of allowing
+this prince of story-tellers to escape.
+
+"Why, yes--to-morrow--if you are still of the same mind, you shall hear
+the Massachusetts story."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+WHAT MASSACHUSETTS CONTRIBUTED
+
+
+Mr. McPhearson had no chance to forget his promise even had he been so
+minded, for promptly the next morning, almost before his tools were laid
+out on his bench, Christopher presented himself, announcing with a
+mischievous smile:
+
+"To-day, you know, you are going to tell me the clock history of
+Massachusetts."
+
+"Indeed I'm not," growled the Scotchman, who although flattered by the
+demand, was unwilling to admit it. "History of Massachusetts! The very
+idea!"
+
+"I said the clock history," corrected Christopher, not a whit abashed.
+
+"Did you? Well, even that is bad enough. What do you think I'm here for?
+To play school-master?"
+
+"Oh, no, indeed. Merely to serve as my private tutor," was the teasing
+reply.
+
+"That's your belief, is it! Egad, I begin to think it is," laughed the
+clockmaker, amused at the lad's audacity. "Certainly your demand would
+seem to bear out the theory."
+
+"But you made the promise yourself--you can't have forgotten that."
+
+"Forget it! Would I be likely to forget--would I so much as get the
+chance, with you pestering me almost before my hat is off? Well, if I
+was rash enough to make a promise like that, I see no way but to keep
+it; so the Massachusetts clock story it shall be. It happens, too, that
+you have asked for it at just the right moment, for to-day I am going to
+work on as fine an old Willard clock as ever you saw. She is the real
+thing!"
+
+"Was Willard the first of the Massachusetts clockmakers?"
+
+"Among the first; and undeniably one of the best and most important of
+them. Oh, of course there were other men--some of them excellent. But we
+know less about them because they left no such long trail of clocks
+behind as the Willards did. Gawen Brown was a splendid workman; and so
+was Avery, who in 1726 made the clock for the Old North church. Then
+there was Benjamin Bagnall, who located in Charlestown about 1712 and
+remained there almost thirty years. His two sons, Benjamin and Samuel,
+also went into the clockmaking business and did very commendable work.
+In addition there were the Munroes of Concord--Daniel and Nathaniel; and
+Samuel Whiting, Nate's partner; not to mention the Popes, Robert and
+Joseph; and Daniel Balch of Newburyport. All these men were well
+established in or near Boston either before 1800 or shortly after that
+date."
+
+"Evidently the Massachusetts people must have known what time it was,"
+grinned Christopher.
+
+"If they didn't it was their own fault," returned his companion, "for
+this list probably represents only a part of those engaged in the
+business. A good many more, like our friend, John Bailey, moved to
+small inland villages where they modestly plied their trade, selling
+their wares to only a limited circle of purchasers. Of these scattered
+craftsmen we have, as I told you, scant information. It is merely when
+we chance upon their names in early town records or a clock turns up to
+testify to their knowledge of their craft that we have tidings of them.
+But with the Willards it was different. They have left behind them a
+collection of clocks that speaks in no mistakable terms for their skill
+and industry."
+
+"How many of these Willards were there?" Christopher demanded.
+
+"Well, old Benjamin, the father, who was located in Framingham somewhere
+about the year 1716, had twelve children and three of these--Benjamin,
+Junior, Simon, and Aaron all became crackajack clockmakers, especially
+Simon. The family, I take it, went to Grafton, a small town near
+Worcester, later on. At any rate Benjamin, Junior, was born there. We
+afterward hear of him in Lexington and are told that in 1771 he moved
+from there to Roxbury. In this latter spot he himself set up a shop; but
+he must still have maintained another one at Grafton, his birthplace,
+where apprentices in the meantime carried on a part of his business, for
+his clocks bear three different markings--Grafton, Lexington, and
+Roxbury. He turned out excellent long-case clocks as well as some
+musical ones, and many of these survive him. He died in Baltimore in
+1803. Aaron, and his son Aaron, Junior (who entered his father's shop
+in 1823), also made fine long-case clocks with brass works that found
+ready sale."
+
+"And Simon?"
+
+"Ah, the story of Simon and his deeds would fill a book. He was the
+flower of the family, so far, anyway, as clockmaking went. His handiwork
+cannot be surpassed," exclaimed McPhearson with enthusiasm. "People are
+liable to associate him only with the banjo clock that bears his name;
+but in reality he made clocks of every imaginable description--long-case
+clocks, tower clocks, gallery clocks, shelf clocks. He was a born clock
+lover if ever there was one! He was, moreover, a marvelous man who up to
+the end of his long life was active and useful. Even after he became
+very old he fought to conceal the limitations age brought and remain
+cheerful and independent. A wonderful example of lusty manhood, truly!
+In the first place you must remember he started out on his career with
+the same meager equipment that hampered all the early clockmakers. A
+file, drill and hammer were practically the only tools he possessed.
+Neither you nor I would think it possible to construct so delicate a
+mechanism as a clock with so few articles to work with. We should insist
+that we needed and _must have_ this thing, that thing, and the other
+thing to use, and then we probably should not be able to produce a clock
+that would go--let alone one that would keep accurate time. But you did
+not hear Simon Willard doing any fussing. There was nothing of the
+whiner about him. The fact that he was obliged to import brass from
+England, hammer it down to the thickness necessary, file it until it
+was smooth, and then polish it by hand did not daunt him. A more
+persistent, painstaking, conscientious clockmaker never lived. What
+marvel that he scorned to advertise? While others cried their products,
+he simply pasted in the back of each of his clocks the few modest facts
+he wished to announce and let his work go out to speak for itself."
+
+"_Ask the man who owns one!_" put in Christopher, quoting a well-known
+and modern advertisement.
+
+"Exactly!" agreed McPhearson. "Anybody that produces an A1 commodity
+hardly needs to bark about it. People find out what goods are worth.
+This, evidently, was Simon Willard's theory. You see he knew his trade
+from A to Z, having been apprenticed to his older brother Benjamin when
+only a small boy. The tale is that when barely thirteen years old he
+made a grandfather clock that was in every respect better than that of
+his master."
+
+"Gee! Why, I am--"
+
+"You are older than that already and could not make a clock, eh?"
+interrupted the Scotchman with quick understanding. "Neither could I,
+and I am many times your age. But life was different in the olden days.
+Boys learned trades very early and went to work at them. Many a lad, for
+example, was sent to sea by the time he was ten or twelve. Hence the
+fact that Simon Willard was apprenticed when so young was in no way
+remarkable. But that he should thus early have outranked his teacher is
+significant. We are not surprised, in consequence, to hear that it was
+not long before he branched out for himself and opened a shop at Grafton
+where he began to construct clocks."
+
+"He must still have been pretty youthful," ventured Christopher.
+
+"I imagine he was. Nevertheless he married and settled down to his
+career, starting in to make both shelf and long-case varieties. These he
+completed during the snowy season when the roads were bad and then, as
+soon as summer came and it was possible to get about on horseback, he
+and his brother, Aaron, used to travel about and sell the winter's
+output. Aaron peddled the goods along the south edge of the
+Massachusetts coast and Simon went north, sometimes even as far as
+Maine."
+
+"But I should think clocks would have been ruined if jolted about on
+horseback!" objected Christopher.
+
+"I don't think it could have been ideal for their health," laughed
+McPhearson. "But it was the best method of distribution the age afforded
+and Simon Willard did not scorn so humble a beginning. He remained in
+Grafton until some time between 1777 and 1780 and then as his wife died
+he moved to Roxbury and at what is now Number 2196 Washington Street
+opened a shop. In the meantime he had done quite a lot of experimenting
+and had arrived at the conclusion he would in future center his energy
+on making only church clocks, hall clocks and turret clocks. Therefore
+from that date on these were the styles he chiefly manufactured.
+Probably it would have been no small surprise to him had he known that
+the banjo clock he patented about 1802 and dubbed an _improved
+timepiece_ would be the one to come down through history bearing his
+name."
+
+"I wouldn't mind having it bear mine," smiled the boy, as he glanced
+toward the beautiful old Willard lying so ignominiously on its back on
+McPhearson's workbench. "I like all these brass trimmings. Besides, the
+picture of the sea fight painted on the glass door is jolly."
+
+"Evidently Willard thought sea fights jolly, too, for he generally
+selected them as decoration for his clocks. I have heard there were two
+men in Roxbury who painted all his glass for him; one of them did lacy
+patterns of conventional design, and the other did naval battles. This
+fact helps us some in identifying genuine Willards. Of course the
+decoration could be copied by others; but add to it other hallmarks
+typical and now well-known and a true Willard can usually be detected.
+For instance, it is said on good authority that no real Willard clock is
+ever surmounted by a brass eagle. We often see the design on old clocks
+that purport to be Willards; but Simon Willard, his descendants attest,
+never used a decoration so elaborate. Instead he preferred simple things
+such as a brass acorn or one carved from wood; a gilt ball, or
+combination of ball and spear-head. But the eagle he never patronized."
+
+"Maybe he didn't know how to make a brass eagle and couldn't find
+anybody who did," suggested Christopher.
+
+"Possibly. To make an eagle would be quite an undertaking if you didn't
+know just how to set about it," acquiesced McPhearson. "At any rate
+Simon let eagles alone. Another device characteristic of his clocks,
+along with these two patterns of glass and the decoration on top, was
+the catch that kept the doors tightly closed. It was a pet scheme of his
+to make use of a sort of clasp that could only be opened with the clock
+key. This he resorted to in order to prevent the doors from jarring open
+and admitting the dirt; and also that children might not be able to
+meddle with the works or hands. He had a great many small children
+himself and had perhaps learned from experience the pranks little people
+were likely to perpetrate. Besides these several trademarks there are in
+addition various ingenious tricks that belonged to Willard and to nobody
+else. These a trained clockmaker instantly recognizes--the use of brass
+pins to hold the dial in place, for one thing. So, you see, when a banjo
+clock comes your way there are various methods by which its genuineness
+can be tested. They cannot, perhaps, be rated as infallible but they do
+help in identification."
+
+"It is a pity Simon Willard did not sign his clocks as artists sign
+their pictures. Then there would have been no discussion about them,"
+said Christopher.
+
+"Willard did mark his later clocks," answered McPhearson. "Possibly in
+his early days it did not occur to him that it was worth while."
+
+"Well, anyhow, I can hunt for the Willard tags--the queer catch on the
+door; the acorns, balls, or spearheads; and the painted lace or the
+naval battles."
+
+At the final phrase the Scotchman smiled whimsically.
+
+"It is funny Willard should have been so keen on sea fights," remarked
+he, "for as a matter of fact he was anything but a fighter. Undoubtedly
+it was the Revolution and the War of 1812 that stimulated the picturing
+of such scenes and made them popular. Had war been left to dear
+peace-loving old Simon Willard there would not have been much shooting,
+for he hated the very sight of a gun. One of his relatives declares that
+although like other loyal citizens he turned out at Lexington on the
+famous nineteenth of April and marched to Roxbury with Captain Kimball's
+company he often humorously asserted afterward that the musket he
+carried had no lock on it. The omission, however, did not appear to
+trouble him; on the contrary, it rather pleased him. Once, in later
+life, he one day picked up a gun that unexpectedly went off with such a
+bang that it knocked him down and as a result he could never be tempted
+into touching firearms of any description. The argument that they were
+not loaded had no effect whatsoever.
+
+"No matter," he would say. "The durn thing may go off just the same."
+
+Christopher laughed merrily.
+
+"It was sometime between 1777 and 1780, as I told you, that Simon
+Willard came to Roxbury. But before he focused his entire attention on
+clocks he invented a clock-jack, and in 1784 with the approval of John
+Hancock, the General Court of Massachusetts granted him the exclusive
+right to make and sell the device."
+
+"And what, pray, is a clock-jack?" interrogated Christopher.
+
+"Ah, it is easily seen you did not live in early colonial days," smiled
+McPhearson. "A clock-jack, sonny, is a contrivance for roasting meat."
+
+"Roasting meat!" repeated the lad incredulously. "But what had a man of
+Willard's genius to do with roasting meat?"
+
+"Perhaps a good deal," the Scotchman answered. "He was the father of a
+big family, remember, and no doubt, like all good husbands, bore his
+share of the domestic burden. A man with eleven children must have been
+forced to turn his shoulder to the wheel in many a domestic crisis, for
+nobody kept servants at that time. Evidently either Willard himself had
+encountered the dilemmas of cooking or he had seen others struggle with
+them, and this, no doubt, was what led him to invent the ingenious
+article of which I have told you."
+
+"But you haven't told me," was Christopher's quick protest.
+
+"Why, so I haven't! Well, in the far-away days of our forefathers food
+was cooked neither in ranges nor in gas stoves. Instead it was cooked
+before the big open fire. A piece of meat, for example, was suspended by
+a chain from the mantelpiece and some member of the family was detailed
+to whirl it round and round until it was roasted evenly and cooked
+through. Now such an operation was a great nuisance, for no matter what
+you wished to do you must keep your mind on that roast lest it burn on
+one side and be ruined. If the mother of the house was washing dishes,
+cooking, or taking care of the baby, she had to stop every few moments
+and turn the meat around. And if she was too much occupied to do it,
+like as not the father was routed out of his shop, and told to have an
+eye on the beef.
+
+"Willard himself may frequently have been forced to drop his tools and,
+since his children were young and motherless, attend to this bothersome
+duty. For fathers played a more intimate part in the homes of that
+generation than they do now. At any rate he was certainly familiar with
+the problems that entered into the cooking of the family dinner--just
+how heavy and clumsy were the big, awkward clock-jacks imported from
+England, how costly they were, and all. So he took the matter in hand
+and invented a clock-jack that was much better than the imported one.
+Not only did it spin the meat around when wound up, but it was enclosed
+in a brass cover that kept in the heat and juices. It is probable that
+the invention furnished inspiration for somebody else for presently the
+covered tin baker made its appearance and Willard abandoned making
+clock-jacks and turned his energy toward timekeepers instead."
+
+"Do you mean to say he made his clocks at home?"
+
+"At first he did. His house was a tiny dwelling, too. Just how he and
+his many children contrived to find places to sleep is a mystery. Some
+of the youngsters were tucked away in trundle beds, you may be sure. Out
+behind the kitchen was a sort of woodshed, and it was in this primitive
+location that Mr. Willard made his clocks."
+
+"Not big clocks!"
+
+"Yes, indeed."
+
+"But I should think he would have been compelled to have more room."
+
+"I fancy his quarters were not ideal and were pretty cramped. He could
+have got on well enough had he been making shelf clocks that vibrated
+only half-seconds, like those of Eli Terry; but he had given up making
+those when he left Grafton. Therefore when it came to testing out his
+big turret clocks, he had to cut a hole in the floor in order to give
+their long pendulums room to swing."
+
+"That was a stunt!"
+
+"It simply proves that a determined man will find a way," McPhearson
+declared. "Simon Willard was not a person who allowed circumstances to
+master him. Lack of tools, limitations of space, the utter absence of
+all those aids we should now deem indispensable--none of these obstacles
+deterred him from making clocks that have seldom been outranked."
+
+"A bully good sport, wasn't he!" exclaimed Christopher.
+
+"A sport in the best sense," agreed McPhearson. "As a humble member of
+his craft I take off my hat to him. It was in 1801 that he made his
+first banjo clock--a clock that, as he asserted, could be hung on the
+wall and stood no risk of being knocked off or moved about as a shelf
+clock did. The patent for this article bore the autographs of President
+Jefferson and James Madison, who was at the time Secretary of State. The
+same year Willard made a clock for the United States Senate Chamber and
+went to Washington to assure himself that it was properly put up and
+also explain how it should be cared for. This clock, unfortunately, was
+ruined when the British burned the Capitol; nevertheless, Willard's
+journey hither was not in vain, for while in the city he made the
+personal acquaintance of President Jefferson and the two men, both of
+them interested in mechanics, formed a lifelong friendship. In fact, it
+was through Jefferson that Willard received the order to make a large
+clock for the University of Virginia."
+
+"And did he have to go down there, too?"
+
+"He did go down. During Jefferson's lifetime he was more than once a
+guest at Monticello. The clock, however, was not completed until after
+the President died, and when Willard finally went to put it in place he
+stayed with Madison who had a home no great distance away."
+
+"He seemed to make friends wherever his business took him," remarked
+Christopher thoughtfully.
+
+"Not only that, but his work made friends for him," was McPhearson's
+answer. "It was so well done that people appreciated its worth and gave
+him more orders. For fifty years he had charge of the clocks at Harvard
+University and in 1829 the Corporation awarded him a vote of thanks for
+his faithful services. It is something of a record to have performed
+work so satisfactorily for half a century."
+
+"I'll say it is!"
+
+"In 1837 the United States Government engaged Mr. Willard to make two
+clocks for the new Capitol at Washington, one of them to take the place
+of the Senate clock that was burned and the other to be put in Statuary
+Hall. In the latter room there was already a very beautiful allegorical
+clock but it needed new works. Willard was now getting to be an old man
+and such a commission would have dismayed most elderly persons. But
+although eighty-five the old clockmaker did not hesitate to fill the
+order or travel to Washington to make sure his handiwork was properly
+installed. It sometimes seemed as if he must have discovered the
+fountain of eternal youth. Remember he was seventy-eight when he made
+the turret clock for the Old State House in Boston. I have heard that
+for some of this later work he used a hand engine to cut parts afterward
+finished by hand; and of course as his fame traveled and his business
+increased, he had apprentices to help him and he was obliged to move
+into a larger shop. But even at that the miracle of what he did does not
+lose its luster.
+
+"At length, in 1839, he retired, a hale, respected veteran with a long
+path of usefulness behind him. Until he was eighty he read without
+glasses; and so accurate was his eye that never in all his life did he
+measure the notchings on a wheel, and yet these free-hand calculations
+proved to be unfailingly correct. But, alas, human machinery is less
+long-lived than is artificial, and at the age of ninety-five Simon
+Willard died.
+
+"'_The old clock is worn out!_' was what he said, and indeed the words
+were true. For close on to a century eyes, hands, and brain had
+continuously labored for the well-being of others. Yet the works of a
+good man follow him and in numberless homes, in public buildings, on
+church spires, honored monuments to the memory of Simon Willard still
+survive--monuments far more useful than are inert blocks of
+marble--monuments that pulse with life and keep hourly before those who
+look upon them the thought of one who performed for his fellow men a
+practical and enduring service."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE ROMANCE OF THE WATCH
+
+
+"I asked Dad last night why he didn't have a Willard clock here in the
+store instead of the one we've got," confided Christopher to McPhearson
+the next morning, "and he was quite sore about it. He said that in the
+first place a balcony clock of Willard make would cost a fortune and
+probably could not be bought, anyway; and then he added that we already
+had a Jim-dandy clock made by one of the Willard apprentices. I didn't
+get the chance to ask him what he meant by that."
+
+"Our clock is a Howard, one of the best makes there is," McPhearson
+explained. "Years ago Edward Howard, the founder of the Howard Clock
+Company, began clockmaking as a pupil of Aaron Willard, Junior. Howard
+was a boy of only sixteen at the time, and for five years he studied
+clocks under this excellent tutelage. Do not imagine, however, that this
+balcony clock of ours was made by Mr. Howard himself. What your father
+meant was that built into the background of the Howard Company were the
+Willard traditions and ideas."
+
+"Then really Aaron Willard hadn't much to do with our clock," remarked
+Christopher, disappointment in his voice.
+
+"Not directly, no. Still you have no cause for complaint on that score.
+The Howard clock is a more modern product, that is all. Mr. Howard, like
+Mr. Willard, left his imprint on both the American clock and watch
+industries, holding for years a very unique place in their development.
+Moreover he founded a great business that now gives to us clocks of
+almost every design. Many are for the interiors of public buildings such
+as halls, stores, churches, offices, and railway stations. Others are
+for towers or steeples. Some have illuminated dials and some are
+electric watch clocks. Therefore do not waste your tears lamenting that
+your father does not possess an old Willard balcony clock. It would be
+an interesting thing to own, I don't deny that; but what you already
+have is as good a timepiece as can be procured anywhere. No one blushes
+for a Howard clock or needs to blush. Mr. Howard, along with Willard,
+deserves great credit for building up this successful business of his,
+for when he began it he started out all by himself in a little shop not
+over thirty feet square."
+
+"It's a wonderful thing to found a big business, isn't it?" reflected
+Christopher.
+
+"Yes, to set going a flourishing industry that not only provides bread
+and butter for hundreds of workmen but also furnishes the public with a
+well-made commodity that it needs is a great service to civilization,"
+said McPhearson. "Edward Howard, as I told you, had a generous part in
+doing this, not only in the clock world but also in the realm of
+watches."
+
+"How did he connect up with the watches?"
+
+"Well, you see, early America had very few watchmakers," was the reply.
+"There were, it is true, numerous persons who dubbed themselves
+watchmakers and who, like myself, could repair a watch; but they could
+not make one. Therefore watchmaking as an industry did not exist in this
+country. So about 1850 Mr. Aaron Dennison, a Boston watch repairer,
+conceived the idea of starting such a business. Already he had discussed
+plans with Edward Howard, and now the two men entered into partnership
+and after raising considerable capital they constructed a small factory
+in Roxbury. To fully appreciate the difficulties of their venture, you
+must keep in mind the fact that previous to this time watchmaking had
+never been conducted along modern lines. There was no such thing in the
+world as a factory system where every part of a watch was made beneath
+one roof. Instead, as I believe I told you, watches were made in
+different places--the wheels at the home of one man, the springs at that
+of another, and so on, after which the various parts were assembled, put
+together, and adjusted. This was the plan followed in France, England,
+and Switzerland, and the one which with certain modifications is to a
+great extent still followed in those countries. And in our own land
+there was not even as much of a system as that, watches being made on a
+very small scale by individual workmen. It was this scheme of affairs
+that Aaron Dennison and Edward Howard determined to change."
+
+"They took some contract on their hands, I should say."
+
+"A bigger contract than you realize, son," the Scotchman answered. "A
+bigger one than they fully realized, I guess. It is fortunate we do not
+see all our obstacles when we set forth on an undertaking, for if we did
+many an enterprise would be abandoned before it was even begun. These
+two men, now--in the first place they had no machinery; nor was there
+any to be bought. Moreover, there was nothing to pattern watch machinery
+after. It had never been made. So, you see, it was one thing to give a
+man tools and leave him to achieve with them a specified end, working
+toward the desired result as he went along; and quite another to invent
+a brainless device that would mechanically reach the same end.
+Numberless difficulties must be overcome. To manufacture watches in
+quantity it was imperative that the parts be interchangeable. They must
+not vary even an infinitesimal degree or the whole delicate organism
+would be thrown out of adjustment. It was not an industry where
+hit-or-miss methods could be glossed over; on the contrary, every part
+of the process must be absolutely accurate. Do you wonder people were
+skeptical as to the possibility of making such a mad undertaking a
+success and hesitated about putting money into it?"
+
+"I suppose the public rated it a wildcat scheme," responded Christopher.
+
+"Yes, it seemed very impractical to business men. When you have to build
+up a factory system from the machinery itself, you have something
+gigantic on your hands. And that is the task on which Mr. Dennison and
+Mr. Howard embarked. I suppose nobody will ever appreciate the trials
+those dauntless pioneers went through. Four years they worked in their
+Roxbury factory and only had a few hundred watches to show for all their
+toil. Nevertheless the experience taught them many things and chief
+among these was the fact that they must have more room. Accordingly in
+1854 they put up a new factory at Waltham, Massachusetts, and it is this
+structure, standing to this day, that was the first building of the
+Waltham Watch factory."
+
+"So the Waltham Watch factory is the grandfather of all the others, is
+it?" commented Christopher.
+
+"It is both the oldest and the largest," declared McPhearson. "It also
+is the place where the factory system of watch manufacture had its
+beginning. The general disbelief of the public was, however, a great
+obstacle to the prosperity of the infant enterprise. Often both Mr.
+Dennison and Mr. Howard were bitterly disheartened. The outlay for
+constructing machinery, buying materials, and experimenting licked up
+capital with terrifying rapidity. Had not two Boston men, Mr. Samuel
+Curtis and Mr. Charles Rice, had faith enough to back the project
+financially, it certainly would have gone to pieces. Even as it was
+quantities of money were sunk before any results were forthcoming. The
+parts of a watch are so small and so delicate that to produce machinery
+that would make them and make them so that one did not vary from another
+by so much as a hair-breadth--well, there were moments when it seemed
+almost futile to try to do it. For, you know, if any part of a watch is
+even so much as one five-thousandth of an inch out of the way, it is
+good-by to the watch. It won't go--that is all!"
+
+"I had no idea such a variation as that would count for anything,"
+gasped his listener. "Why, it must have been terrible to figure
+machinery down to that point! I shouldn't think Mr. Dennison or Mr.
+Howard would ever have wanted to look at another watch."
+
+"I imagine there were times when they didn't," was McPhearson's grave
+response. "But for all that they persisted. Fortunately they made a
+pretty good team, so far as training went, for Mr. Dennison was
+perfectly familiar with repairing, and Mr. Howard with the construction
+of watches. Notwithstanding this, however, neither of them had any
+knowledge whatsoever as to certain details of the business--how to make
+a dial, temper hairsprings, polish steel, or do watch-gilding
+properly--and none of their men had either. As a result every one of
+these separate arts and many like them had to be studied and mastered
+from the foundation up, and after the chiefs themselves had experimented
+and found out how to turn the trick they had to teach their men what
+they personally had learned."
+
+"Great Scott! I'd have given the business away to anybody who wanted
+it," burst out Christopher.
+
+"So would almost anybody else, I fancy," agreed the Scotchman. "But they
+kept right on sticking at it. It wasn't their courage that gave out in
+the end; it was their money. They simply could not continue to pull
+along under so colossal a burden. Therefore after three years they sold
+the business (operated at that time under the name of the Boston Watch
+Company) to Mr. Royal Robbins, and he reorganized it and christened it
+the Waltham Watch Company."
+
+"It seems kind of a pity they had to sell it," mused Christopher with
+regret. "The worst of the battle was over by that time."
+
+"Yes. At least the foundation of the enterprise was well laid."
+
+"What became of Mr. Dennison and Mr. Howard?" asked the boy.
+
+"Mr. Howard went back to Roxbury to his first factory and there the
+Howard Watch and Clock Company was formed. The saying goes that it is a
+long lane that has no turning. Certainly every one familiar with Mr.
+Howard's early struggles must have rejoiced in the success that
+ultimately came to him. Mr. Dennison had in the meantime left the
+Waltham company; but when it was reorganized he returned to it and
+remained there several years to lend his invaluable aid to the new
+firm."
+
+"And did the concern go ahead after that?"
+
+"Yes, it had reached calm waters by this time. Besides, when the Civil
+War arose and the rate of gold went up, watches brought very high prices
+and the company coined money. With it they were enabled to branch out
+and not only improve their home plant but put up factories elsewhere.
+Some of these were not, to be sure, successful; but as a whole the
+business thrived wonderfully. Offices were established in London, and
+America began to take her place among the big watchmaking countries of
+the world."
+
+"Hurrah for Uncle Sam!" laughed the boy.
+
+"Rather I say hurrah for the fellows who fought his watch battle for
+him," was McPhearson's somewhat curt retort. "For the watch business has
+never been one easy of development. You can blunder along and turn out
+poor, carelessly made stuff in certain lines of trade and get by with
+it. The public does not always know a good product from a bad one, and
+all except the expert can be easily fooled. But a watch proclaims its
+own worth. It has to go and has to keep accurate time or all the world
+will know it. If it fails to do the work it was bought to do, people
+won't buy it. Therefore that these results may be reached and a
+satisfactory article put on the market there must be money enough to
+house a large plant, pay skilled and high-priced workmen, supply the
+best of material, and tempt into the industry men of brains. Many a
+watch venture has gone on the rocks for the lack of these assets.
+
+"Once on its feet, however, a well-manned American watch concern has all
+it can do. It need have no qualms about foreign rivalry, for no European
+country has ever yet been able to build up a factory system that could
+touch that of the United States, either in quality or quantity of
+output. As a result most nations have given over trying to. Our watches
+can be made cheaper and hence in greater numbers than those of other
+lands, and we now practically control the watch market. The era when a
+few watches were made by hand and afterward sent to a local astronomer
+or distant observatory to be tested out has passed. Even before the
+United States Naval Observatory was established the Waltham Watch
+Company had an observatory of its own. Now we have graduated even beyond
+that point and each noon the official time is telegraphed or broadcast
+from Arlington to all parts of the country."
+
+"We do whizz ahead, don't we?" meditated Christopher, absently twirling
+between his fingers a screw he had picked up from McPhearson's bench.
+
+"I should say we did," was the enthusiastic reply. "That screw, for
+instance! In the infancy of watchmaking it took a good factory worker a
+whole day to make from eight to twelve hundred screws. This seems a vast
+number until you recall that each watch requires from thirty to fifty of
+these small articles. At that rate, you see, it would not take long to
+use up all the screws a mechanic could turn out. Now, so marvelous has
+machinery become, that a single operator can tend half a dozen or more
+machines, every one of which can produce from four thousand to ten
+thousand screws a day. This gives you some idea of the proportionate
+increase in watch parts. For in a big country like this we have to make
+lots of watches to supply those constantly clamoring for them. Long ago
+a watch was either a toy or a luxury; but now every person you meet
+carries one. The price is such that he can afford to. But more than
+this, a watch is absolutely indispensable in our present manner of
+living. From morning to night we rush to crowd into our twenty-four
+hours everything we can possibly crowd in; and in order to do this we
+must keep careful track of the minutes and hours. Hence the demand for
+watches has multiplied almost beyond belief and there are now a great
+many watch factories."
+
+"What are some of them?"
+
+"I'll mention a few as nearly in the order of their founding as I can,"
+McPhearson answered:
+
+"The E. Howard Company of Boston, organized 1850.
+
+"American Waltham Watch Company, Waltham, Massachusetts, 1859.
+
+"Elgin National Watch Company, Elgin, Illinois, 1870.
+
+"Rockford Watch Company, Rockford, Illinois, 1874.
+
+"U. S. Watch Company, Waltham, Massachusetts, 1883.
+
+"Hamilton Watch Company, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1892.
+
+"These are some of the oldest and best known firms."
+
+Christopher thought a moment.
+
+"Of course I've heard of some of them," remarked he. "The Hamilton
+everybody knows. It is advertised in almost every magazine."
+
+"The Hamilton watch came into being under interesting and, I may say,
+tragic circumstances. One day a bad railroad accident happened out near
+Cleveland, Ohio, and when the calamity was investigated evidence proved
+that neither of the engineers on the unlucky trains that collided was
+really to blame. The trouble was that their watches did not agree. There
+was a difference of four minutes between them. Both timepieces were good
+ones that never before had led their owners astray; but on this fatal
+day they were responsible not only for the deaths of two blameless
+engineers but also a number of mail clerks. It is strange, isn't it,
+that the public must always experience a terrible lesson before it wakes
+up to safeguarding human life? Let us have a fire in which many persons
+perish, and we begin to move heaven and earth to inspect buildings and
+install fire escapes; or let a lot of people die from shipwreck and we
+cannot buy life belts fast enough. But we always wait until _after_ the
+disaster has occurred before we do it. Thus it was with this fatal
+railroad accident. Once the catastrophe had happened and the poor chaps
+were dead, a set of rules was established whereby men employed on trains
+must carry watches of a specified quality. No cheap article was to be
+allowed in future. And not only must the railroad worker purchase such a
+watch, but he must keep it cleaned and properly regulated."
+
+"That was all very well to decree," replied Christopher, "but how could
+the authorities make sure such a rule would be obeyed?"
+
+"Ah, the railroad took no chances of being fooled," was McPhearson's
+instant reply. "A watch inspector was appointed whose duty it was to
+examine every important official's watch once in a stated period and see
+that it conformed to the requirements. If a watch failed to keep up to
+the standard set--by that I mean if it lost or gained more than a very
+trifling amount a week--it was condemned and ordered to be discarded and
+a new one had to be bought."
+
+"But how about the men?" put in Christopher, a hint of disapproval in
+his tone. "What if some of them couldn't afford to purchase these
+fine-running, expensive watches? Being told to toss your watch out the
+window and get another isn't always possible."
+
+"It was to meet the objection that you have just raised that a week
+after the wreck the Hamilton Watch Company of Lancaster was organized.
+It aimed to manufacture a good, close-running watch at a moderate price,
+and it fulfilled its promise. The proposition was a sound business one,
+too, for all over the country men were employed to whom correctness of
+time was of vital importance--switch-tenders, motormen, engineers,
+conductors, not to enumerate the thousands of other working people to
+whom being prompt at ferries, trains, cars, and their job was
+imperative. So, you see, the age provided a distinct market for a
+high-class article of this sort and the Hamilton Company was intelligent
+enough to realize and seize it. Good business is seeing your chance,
+grabbing it, and then holding onto it."
+
+The lad smiled.
+
+"Of course there are times," continued McPhearson, "when it is possible
+to create a market out of whole cloth. If, for instance, you can think
+of something that would be useful to the public, something they
+themselves have never happened to think of before, you can bring it to
+their attention by clever advertising and make them want it. That is the
+method the Waterbury Watch Company followed in launching their goods
+back in 1880. For a long time two Massachusetts men had been wondering
+whether an exceedingly cheap watch that would be within the reach of
+even quite poor people could not be made. Such a commodity, they argued,
+could not fail to have an extensive sale. The problem was who could they
+find to construct this sort of timepiece? Then on a fine day Mr. Locke,
+one of the men, saw in the window of a Worcester jeweler a miniature
+steam engine that had previously been exhibited at the Philadelphia
+Centennial. Immediately the thought came into his mind that a workman
+who could construct such a perfect toy must be both ingenious and
+inventive, and he went into the shop and offered Mr. Buck, the maker of
+the wee engine, a hundred dollars to produce for him a cheap watch of
+the type he had in mind."
+
+"Was Mr. Buck ready to try the stunt?"
+
+"Yes, he agreed to see what he could do," was the reply. "So he got to
+work and after a little while had a model ready. But, alas, it did not
+prove to be much of a watch, and the poor man, having toiled and worried
+about it day and night, finally went to bed sick. But of course that
+wouldn't do. He had had the money and therefore was bound either to pay
+it back--a thing he was in too straitened circumstances to do--or he
+must stick at the problem until he solved it. Both he and his wife were
+honest people who understood this. Accordingly Mrs. Buck begged that her
+husband be given a little more time. He had, declared she, a better plan
+in his head which he would try out as soon as he was able."
+
+"What did Mr. Locke say to that?"
+
+"Both he and Mr. Merritt, his associate, consented to wait a little
+while and at the end of a few months Mr. Buck was as good as his word
+and brought them the model of a watch that was exactly what they wanted.
+Thus far the enterprise went all right." The clockmaker paused.
+
+"You sound as if things began to happen afterward," suggested
+Christopher.
+
+"Well, to tell the truth, they did. In the first place money had to be
+raised to put the venture on its feet. As a good deal of this capital,
+together with factory facilities, was offered by a brass manufacturing
+firm at Waterbury, Connecticut, there the plant was installed. But like
+every other watchmaking project this one swallowed up a great many
+dollars before any watches were to be seen. Then at last the first
+thousand were triumphantly turned out and, to the chagrin of the firm,
+proved to be anything but a success. Some difficulty with the brass used
+prevented their running properly."
+
+One would have thought, to hear Christopher's sympathetic exclamation,
+that all his earnings had been invested in the unlucky enterprise.
+
+"The second thousand were better," went on the Scotchman, "but still
+they did not go well; this meant more money to improve the machinery
+and still more delay in putting the goods on the market. Then at length
+after the watches had been doctored until only a small percentage of
+them stopped they were offered for sale."
+
+"Did people buy them?"
+
+"If they didn't it was not the fault of the Company," chuckled
+McPhearson. "Certainly every inducement was held out to purchasers. Not
+only was the price of four dollars within reach of the most meager
+purse, but the watches were dangled as bait before the eyes of all sorts
+of covetous bargain hunters. Sometimes you were coaxed into buying a
+suit of clothes to get one; sometimes one came with a big order of
+groceries or maybe as a premium for selling soap. Not infrequently they
+were awarded as prizes for subscriptions to magazines. They were so
+hawked about that the whole country heard of them and quantities of them
+were sold."
+
+"The firm must have got rich," put in Christopher, much interested.
+
+"It didn't," was the prompt contradiction. "On the contrary, after
+several years of struggle, it failed. The public is fickle, you know,
+and the novelty of owning a cheap watch wore off. Moreover, the product
+got a bad name and failed to be taken seriously. It required a great
+deal of time and energy to wind a watch with such a long spring as this
+one had, and I must agree that those who made jokes at the expense of
+the poor Waterbury were well within their rights. Furthermore, the
+watches had been linked up with inferior commodities and when purchasers
+found, for example, that they had been gulled on the suit of clothes
+they acquired with the watch, instead of cursing the clothier they took
+out their wrath on the watch company. Then, too, the firm, in order to
+get their wares distributed, had parted with them at so small a margin
+of profit that nothing was made on them. The entire scheme from
+beginning to end showed poor generalship. What wonder such an enterprise
+went down?"
+
+"And is that the end of the story?"
+
+"By no means," retorted the Scotchman. "Far from it. The management took
+their experience as wise people do and years later began over again,
+afterward reaping greater success than they had ever known, all of which
+proves that it never pays to give up."
+
+"Haven't lots of other kinds of cheap watches been made since?"
+
+"Yes. The Ingersoll is one. It is the result of several years'
+experiment with a dollar watch. At first a thick, clumsy contrivance
+that wound from the back like a clock was introduced, and from this
+stepping stone Ingersoll developed a second and third type, each an
+improvement on the original. Having thereby convinced himself that the
+dollar watch was not only possible but would sell, he got the Waterbury
+Company to put out his idea for him; now the Ingersolls have in addition
+two factories of their own, and the three together average an output of
+about twenty thousand watches a day. In a country as big as ours,
+however, the great problem is to get goods known from east to west, and
+from the north to the south, and this obstacle of distribution was the
+one the company encountered. How was the country generally to know there
+was a good dollar watch? Owing to the scant margin of profit on which
+the watches were sold, it did not pay large retailers to carry them.
+Neither could they find even standing-room in a shop like your
+fathers'." With dancing eyes the Scotchman regarded Christopher.
+
+"Moreover," he went on, "although Ingersoll guaranteed his watch, tricky
+competition arose. Other firms borrowed the name as a label for their
+own poor goods; some merchants took the Ingersoll watch and ran up the
+price on it, privately pocketing the profit. To outwit such practices
+the company not only printed their name on the dials of their watches
+but they carefully printed the exact price on the boxes in which they
+were packed. You would have thought this would have forever put at an
+end any foul play, wouldn't you? But even these precautions were
+circumvented by sharpers who advertised their wretched wares as
+marked-down Ingersolls. Thus the company was compelled to fight inch by
+inch for its rights."
+
+"I'd no idea business was such a mess," ejaculated Christopher. "And
+what happened to the Ingersoll people finally?"
+
+"Providentially a turn came in their affairs," was the answer. "It is an
+ill wind that blows nobody good, the saying goes. In every calamity
+lurks some good and for the Ingersoll Company, at least, there was good
+in the Great War. Again we see a clever manufacturer grasping his
+opportunity. No one knew better than Ingersoll how costly striking
+watches were; he also sensed that soldiers who were fighting could not
+be supplied with endless numbers of watches nor even if they were would
+they always be where they could show a light. Nevertheless there would
+be hundreds of men in the trenches and on the battle fields who through
+long stretches of darkness would wish to know what time it was. Many
+would be on guard and compelled to remain awake; and many more would be
+unable to sleep from terror, homesickness, or because they suffered from
+the various discomforts war brings. What, therefore, could be a greater
+boon than a cheap watch with an illuminated face? It was to answer this
+emergency that the Ingersoll Company turned out their Radiolite Watch."
+
+"I suppose the dial had phosphorus on it," rejoined Christopher.
+
+"No. Phosphorus was found to be entirely impractical for the purpose,
+because, you see, phosphorus must at intervals be placed where it can
+absorb the light in order to retain its brilliancy. Now as a man's watch
+stays most of the time in his pocket, a watch dial treated with
+phosphorus would have no opportunity to regain its phosphorescence.
+Hence the Ingersoll Company developed a sort of radium coating for their
+dials. It probably was not actually made from radium because there is
+not enough of it to be found in all the world even if a watch company
+could afford to buy it up. Just what this magic watch dial was made from
+was Ingersoll's secret; but anyway it did what it was guaranteed to do
+and instantly leaped into popularity. Many and many a soldier off on
+the battle front blessed the makers of these watches, I guess. As for
+the company--no longer were they obliged to wrestle with the problem of
+getting their goods known, because from one end of our country to the
+other, as well as far overseas, their watches became a byword." The old
+Scotchman stopped as if tired with telling his long story.
+
+"Now," added he, "I have roughly sketched for you the tale of
+watchmaking in America. There is much more that might be related but you
+yourself, by using your eyes and ears, can fill in the gaps. Just
+remember this one fact--that it was your own land that developed and
+brought to its present high grade of efficiency the factory system of
+making watches. You have no cause to apologize, either, for your
+country's handiwork. We do not by any means always hold first place in
+the products we put out. Many nations can give us points along certain
+lines of industry. But in this field we are supreme and have given the
+world something for which we need not blush. So, say I, three cheers for
+Uncle Sam! Sometime if you can manage it, make a trip through one of our
+up-to-date American watch factories. Examine the numberless machines
+that represent so much patient and intelligent study. Then come home
+grateful to our watch pioneers for what they have handed on to us."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CHRISTOPHER HAS A BIRTHDAY
+
+
+While clocks and watches ticked on and rings and gemmed necklaces were
+sold to covetous buyers, the year was sweeping by and May was coming.
+Christopher always looked forward to this month, gay with flowers, for
+with it came his birthday--a date always celebrated with rejoicing in
+the Burton family.
+
+It was the one time of year when he became of supreme importance and
+when everybody in the house united to turn the world upside down for his
+delight. Christmas was a general holiday. But May twentieth was his own
+particular anniversary. Always there was some really worthwhile present
+about which endless whispering and the greatest secrecy was maintained.
+Once it had been a fine camera; once a tool chest; last year it was the
+long-coveted wireless for which he had so long sighed. What, speculated
+the boy, would it be this season?
+
+Thus far he had not gleaned an inkling. There had been times when in
+spite of his father's and mother's precautions to surprise him he had
+had suspicions; and occasionally such suspicions had proved to be right.
+His radio set, for example--he had been pretty sure it was coming, and
+on May twentieth there it was! And then there had been instances when
+measurements had to be taken or the size of his shoes considered, and
+these inevitable hints had given away beforehand the plots his parents
+were hatching.
+
+But this year dense mystery hung like a curtain over the great day.
+There was not even a mention made of it. No casual remarks were dropped
+to trap him into telling what he wanted. Indeed, so dumb was every one
+concerning the festival that he actually began to fear the date had been
+forgotten. Of course a great deal of money had already been spent on his
+eyes; he realized that. He had been to the oculist almost every week for
+treatment. He knew he should be grateful for all this and he was. But
+despite what it had cost, one could hardly consider it a present. Still,
+as the days went by and there appeared to be no prospect of anything
+else in the wind, he began to believe his parents regarded it as one.
+Grown-ups looked at things from such a different angle! No doubt they
+felt they had spent upon him all they felt justified in spending.
+
+This realization at first brought to the lad a sense of disappointment.
+There were so many things he wanted! Why, although he would have blushed
+to admit it, there was lying in his pocket this very minute a list of
+gifts carefully written out in case his father or mother asked for
+suggestions as they often had done in the past. But they did not inquire
+for it. May eighteenth and May nineteenth slipped by without an allusion
+to the fact that on May twentieth he had been born, and so oblivious was
+everybody to his existence that had he not looked in the glass and
+verified it, he would almost have begun to doubt he was alive himself.
+
+When at length the great day dawned, he descended to breakfast with that
+mingled anticipation and self-consciousness that always overwhelmed him
+on such occasions. He was wont to feel very foolish and vividly aware of
+his hands and feet when he made his annual advent into the dining room.
+
+As it happened, however, he need have experienced no embarrassment
+to-day for the fact that fourteen years ago he had entered into this
+vale of tears was not mentioned. True, his mother did kiss him a trifle
+more warmly than usual, and an additional salutation, which she
+instantly repressed, seemed trembling on her tongue. But there was
+nothing else out of the ordinary.
+
+Therefore he sat down and ate his breakfast with the chagrined
+conviction that for the first time in history the anniversary to which
+he had habitually looked forward with such keen pleasure had slipped his
+parents' memory. It was strange that each of them should have forgotten.
+Even if his father had been too busy about the shipment of the gems
+expected from Holland to bear it in mind, one would have thought his
+mother would have remembered. She was, to be sure, much taken up with
+doing over the library and fussing about curtains which she declared she
+never would be able to match. But for all that you would have thought
+she would recall that May twentieth was coming. It wasn't at all like
+her to let her own interests crowd out those of her family.
+
+Perhaps they thought he was getting too old for birthdays. That would be
+a tragedy indeed, since it would mean that he never would have any more
+presents. Oh, it wasn't likely they thought that! No, the whole thing
+was just a mistake, and as long as it was Christopher shrank from
+correcting the error. You couldn't very well shout, "This is my
+birthday, good people. Any contributions you would like to give me will
+be gratefully received." Once he would not have hesitated to do this.
+But now he was older and had more pride.
+
+Therefore he ate his orange and his cereal as serenely as he could,
+hoping the disappointment he experienced would not be evident in his
+face. Apparently it was not. With customary impatience Mr. Burton
+swallowed his coffee and, rising from the table, cautioned his son to
+hurry up and not keep him waiting; and on hearing this familiar
+admonition, Christopher's last weak hope that the day was to be
+different from other days vanished, and he dashed for his hat and coat.
+
+"Good-by, Mother," he called up the stairway.
+
+"Your mother is going into town with us to-day," Mr. Burton explained.
+"She has some errands to do."
+
+"She didn't say so at breakfast."
+
+"She forgot to, most likely. She was in a good deal of a hurry. Here she
+comes now. Don't stop to put on your gloves, my dear. You can do it in
+the car."
+
+Off they went to the station and then into New York they whizzed by
+train. There was not much opportunity to talk. Christopher's father read
+the paper, and his mother consumed the time by holding various scraps
+of gauzy blue stuff up to the light and asking which of them he liked
+best. Then they bundled into a taxi and riding to the store entered it,
+where the counterpart of every other day in the year began. And yet,
+after all, did the day start as other days were wont to do? To begin
+with, there was his mother who, instead of rolling off downtown to her
+shopping, as would have been her customary program, alighted from the
+taxicab with his father and himself. Moreover the interior of the shop
+did not seem quite the same. Nonsensical as it was to suppose it, there
+seemed to be in the atmosphere a subtle air of suspense quite new and
+unusual. Besides that, there were flowers on his father's desk; and what
+was more surprising, apparently he was the only one to notice these
+innovations.
+
+Nevertheless he did not speak of them but pulled off his coat and stood
+for a moment hesitating before going to hunt up McPhearson. It was in
+his mind to accompany his mother down in the elevator and see her to the
+door after she should have finished her business. Perhaps she had come
+to get money for her shopping; or possibly, as she sometimes did, she
+was going to select a wedding present downstairs. But if any such
+missions stimulated her she was, to judge by appearances, in no haste to
+fulfill them; instead she loosened her scarf and sat down as if she had
+no other aim in the world than to remain all day.
+
+He couldn't quite make it out.
+
+Then presently the door opened and in came Mr. Rhinehart, Hollings,
+McPhearson, and even the old colored elevator man, who every day had
+carried him up and down. Mr. Norcross also stole in from his office and
+so did the prim Miss Elkins.
+
+Then, to the boy's astonishment, Mr. Rhinehart stepped forward and began
+a little speech. At first Christopher did not grasp the fact that it was
+directed to himself; but soon, when in the name of all the employees of
+his father's firm, the kindly clerk wished him a happy birthday and
+handed him a small red leather case, it gradually dawned on him that he
+was actually the hero of a surprise party.
+
+The flowers, the tensity that pervaded the shop, his mother's coming to
+the city were all because on May twentieth, fourteen years ago, he had
+been born. The day had not been forgotten as he had thought. On the
+contrary, more people had this time thought of him and taken pains to
+let him know it than he had ever supposed cared whether he was alive or
+not. And to prove it, they were now giving him a present. Mr. Rhinehart,
+Hollings, McPhearson, old Saunders--all of them had had a part in
+it--and they said it was because they had become fond of him and admired
+him for being so cheerful and patient about his eyes. Their kindness
+overwhelmed him and brought a queer, tight, choky feeling into his
+throat. He didn't deserve any of the things Mr. Rhinehart said. It
+didn't seem to him that he had been very patient. On the contrary, he
+had often rebelled inside at being so helpless. How ashamed he was when
+he thought of his secret grumblings!
+
+With pounding heart and cheeks that burned he looked down at the red
+leather case in his hand.
+
+Think of the men doing this for him! He wanted to tell them how
+wonderful he thought it was, to tell them he didn't merit such a gift;
+but no words would come.
+
+Then he heard his father speaking:
+
+"I am sure, Christopher, you wish to thank Mr. Rhinehart and through him
+the others who have so generously given you this beautiful present."
+
+"I do want to, Dad," cried he, looking up, "but you see I don't know
+how. I never was so surprised in all my life. It's knocked the breath
+out of me."
+
+Laughter greeted this naive confession. Then everything became easier.
+
+"Suppose," suggested his mother, "you open the box and see what's in
+it."
+
+The idea was a happy one. With action his shyness vanished and centering
+his attention on the square case in his hand a cry of pleasure escaped
+him. Lying there on the dark crimson velvet was a watch--a gold
+repeater--bearing the stamp of America's first and oldest watchmaking
+factory. He knew all about that particular watch, for he had often seen
+it in the show case and coveted it. And now, miracle of miracles, there
+it was in his hand with his own monogram adorning its back cover. He had
+never expected to possess anything so precious.
+
+"You see, Christopher, we've all enjoyed having you round the store this
+winter," murmured McPhearson. "You've brought cheer to everybody. We
+shall miss you when you go back to school next season. Nevertheless we
+rejoice your eyes are on the mend and we wanted you to know how glad we
+are."
+
+"It was bully of you all--simply bully!" burst out the lad. "I don't
+deserve anything of the sort, for I know I must have been more bother to
+everybody than I was worth. You are the ones who have been patient. But
+the watch is a dandy. It is exactly the one I would have picked out
+could I have had my choice. You see, I've never owned a line watch. I
+guess it was just as well, too, for I never appreciated watchmaking
+until Mr. McPhearson told me what a really good watch meant. Now I'd as
+soon starve a kitten as not take care of it."
+
+A clapping of hands greeted the assertion.
+
+"But you were wrong about one thing, Dad," the boy continued. "I am not
+going to thank the men through Mr. Rhinehart or anybody else. I am going
+round the store to thank every person myself."
+
+"Bravo, son!" replied Mr. Burton. "But before you start on this
+pilgrimage I have just a word to add. The gift you hold in your hand has
+been presented to you by the men of Burton and Norcross. Your mother and
+I have had no part in it, and the present we have planned for you has
+not yet been delivered. It is a different sort from the one you usually
+receive from us. Nevertheless, although it is neither a wireless, a
+typewriter, a dog, or a bicycle I hope you are going to like it."
+
+He paused for a moment and glanced round the office.
+
+"There is one man in our employ who has been here longer than any of the
+others," he went on. "He is a man whom we all respect and whose loyalty
+and friendship we value highly. Years ago he left his native land to
+become a citizen of this country and give to America his skill and
+knowledge. His faithful, intelligent labor has had much to do with the
+building up of our business and the establishment of a standard for
+thorough, reliable work. You all know the man I have in mind--Angus
+McPhearson."
+
+Cheers broke in on the speech. The old Scotchman was a general favorite.
+It was easy to see that.
+
+"This winter," added Mr. Burton, "this craftsman has annexed to his
+other duties that of tutor. He has taken you, Christopher, and taught
+you more in a few short months than I ever knew you to learn before in
+all your history. Because your mother and I are grateful to him for his
+kindness, interest, and instruction; because, as the head of this firm I
+value his services and wish to recognize them, I have selected for you a
+birthday present that shall include him. I know you like him very
+much--"
+
+"You bet I do!" interrupted Christopher enthusiastically.
+
+"And so," continued Mr. Burton, bestowing on the comment only a smile,
+"we have planned to send you two to Europe this summer on a clock-seeing
+expedition."
+
+"Oh!" cried Christopher.
+
+"Oh, sir!" came in a bewildered whisper from the Scotchman.
+
+"You will first go to Scotland," explained Mr. Burton, "and there
+McPhearson is to visit his old home and the friends he wishes to hunt
+up. He is not to hurry about it, either. Then, while you are there, he
+is to take you for a trip through the Scotch Lakes that you may see the
+beauty of the land that turns out such splendid men as he. After that
+you will travel down through England, seeing all you can as you go and
+searching out the old clocks and the famous collections of them that he
+has told you about. Then across the Channel in an airship (you will like
+that, Christopher) and on to France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy.
+How does the proposition strike you, son?"
+
+"We'll see the bears of Berne, Mr. McPhearson," cried Christopher
+excitedly. "And the Straasburg clock, too! And that wonderful clock in
+Venice. Think of it!"
+
+"I am scarcely able to think of it," gasped the little Scotchman.
+
+"You would like to go?" inquired Mr. Burton gently.
+
+"Oh, sir, it has been my dream for years. I have thought and thought of
+sometime making such a journey. But it never has been possible. The
+expense--"
+
+"It is going to be possible now," cut in Mr. Burton, smiling. "That is,
+if you are willing to take Christopher along."
+
+"Nothing would please me better," ejaculated the watchmaker. "He is a
+fine lad. This year I have come to--"
+
+"We know you have, Mr. McPhearson," asserted Mrs. Burton softly. "Your
+kindness to our boy has proved that. That is why we are going to trust
+him to you. He is the most precious thing we have in the world. We
+should not let everybody borrow him."
+
+With that the group broke up. Mr. Norcross hurried into his office; Mrs.
+Burton opened her bag and once more began to fumble with her foolish
+gauzy samples; and Mr. Burton took up from his desk a handful of letters
+and glanced curiously over them. Even Mr. Rhinehart, Hollings, and the
+others scattered to their awaiting tasks, and Christopher and McPhearson
+were left alone.
+
+"That's a present worth having, isn't it?" the boy cried with delight.
+
+"It is like a dream come true," the Scotchman answered, with misty eyes.
+
+
+FINIS
+
+
+
+
+By Sara Ware Bassett
+
+    _The Invention Series_
+
+    PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS
+    STEVE AND THE STEAM ENGINE
+    TED AND THE TELEPHONE
+    WALTER AND THE WIRELESS
+    CARL AND THE COTTON GIN
+    CHRISTOPHER AND THE CLOCKMAKERS
+
+
+
+
+    +-------------------------------------------------------------+
+    |                                                             |
+    | Transcriber's Note:                                         |
+    |                                                             |
+    | P. 124 Fromantell changed to Fromanteel                     |
+    |                                                             |
+    | P. 126 Closing double quotation mark added after New York   |
+    |        City.                                                |
+    |                                                             |
+    | P. 196 Eli, junior changed to Eli, Junior                   |
+    |                                                             |
+    | Alternative spelling for focused/focussed, shan't/sha'n't,  |
+    | jeweler/jeweller, honor/honour, and the spelling of         |
+    | Nurenburg and Straasburg have been retained as they appear  |
+    | in the original book.                                       |
+    |                                                             |
+    +-------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTOPHER AND THE CLOCKMAKERS***
+
+
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