Christopher and the Clockmakers

E-text prepared by La Monte H. P. Yarroll, Jacqueline Jeremy, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
SARA WARE BASSETT

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.
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?