The clock in the window of a real estate office says "Two." A few windows down another clock says "Ten minutes after two."
The newspaper man waiting for a Sheffield Avenue owl car walks along to the next corner, listening for the sound of car wheels and looking at the clocks. The clocks all disagree. They all hang ticking with seemingly identical and indisputable precision. Their white faces and their black numbers speak in the dark of the empty stores. "Tick-tock, Time never sleeps. Time keeps moving the hands of the city's clocks around and around."
Alas, when clocks disagree what hope is there for less methodical mechanisms, particularly such humpty-dumpty mechanisms as tick away inside the owners of clocks? The newspaper man must sigh. These clocks in the windows of the empty stores along Sheffield Avenue seem to be arguing. They present their arguments calmly, like meticulous professors. They say: "Eight minutes of two. Three minutes of two. Two. Four minutes after two. Ten minutes after two."
Thus the confusions of the day persist even after the darkness has swept the streets clean of people. There being nobody else to dispute, the clocks take it up and dispute the hour among themselves.
The newspaper man pauses in front of one half-hidden clock. It says "Six." Obviously here is a clock not running. Its hands have stopped and it no longer ticks. But, thinks the newspaper man, it is not to be despised for that. At least it is the only clock in the neighborhood that achieves perfect accuracy. Twice a day while all the other clocks in the street are disputing and arguing, this particular clock says "Six" and of all the clocks it alone is precisely accurate.
In the distance a yellow light swings like an idle lantern over the car tracks. So the newspaper man stops at the corner and waits. This is the owl car. It may not stop. Sometimes cars have a habit of roaring by with an insulting indifference to the people waiting for them to stop at the corner. At such moments one feels a fine rage, as if life itself had insulted one. There have been instances of men throwing bricks through the windows of cars that wouldn't stop and cheerfully going to jail for the crime.
But this car stops. It comes to a squealing halt that must contribute grotesquely to the dreams of the sleepers in Sheffield Avenue. The night is cool. As the car stands silent for a moment it becomes, with its lighted windows and its gay paint, like some modernized version of the barque in which Jason journeyed on his quest.
* * * * *
The seats are half filled. The newspaper man stands on the platform with the conductor and stares at the passengers. The conductor is an elderly man with an unusually mild face.
The people in the car try to sleep. Their heads try to make use of the window panes for pillows. Or they prop their chins up in their palms or they are content to nod. There are several young men whose eyes are reddened. A young woman in a cheap but fancy dress. And several middle-aged men. All of them look bored and tired. And all of them present a bit of mystery.