"How's your clock?" said I, turning round and looking through the window, so as to get a sly chance of pushing my "dickey" into its place. "How's your clock?"
"Well, it's about ten minutes fast. Isn't it, Sarah?" said he to the servant, who was coming in with some coals.
"No," replied she. "I put it right by th' blacksmith, this mornin'."
By "the blacksmith," she meant the figure of an old man with a hammer, which struck the hours upon the bell of a public clock, a little higher up the street.
"Well," said my friend, looking at the time-table, "in any case, you're too late for this train now. Sit down a bit. I left my watch this morning, to have a new spring put in it; but I'll keep my eye on the clock, so that you shall be in time for the next. Sit you down, an' let's have a chat about old times."
I gave a furtive glance at my "dickey," and seeing it was all right, I sat down again with a sigh, laying the sound leg of my trousers carefully over my split knee. I had no sooner sat down, than he looked at my waistcoat pocket again, and said, "I say, old boy, why don't you carry a watch? It would be a great convenience."
I explained to him that I had been so many years used to notice public clocks, and to marking the time by the action of nature and by those movements of human life that are regulated by clock-work, that I felt very little need for a watch. Besides, it was as easy to ask the time of day of people who had watches, as it would be to look at one's own; and then, if I had a watch, I did not know whether the convenience of the thing would compensate for the anxiety and expense of it. He listened attentively, and then, after looking into the fire musingly for a minute or two, as if he was interpreting my excuse in some way of his own, he suddenly knocked his pipe upon the top bar of the fire-grate, and said, "By Jupiter Ammon, I'll give you one!" My friend never swears, except by that dissolute old Greek; or by a still more mysterious deity, whom he calls "the Living Jingo!" Whenever he mentions either of these, I know that he means something strong; so I sat still and "watched the case," as lawyers say.
"Mary," said he, rising, and calling to his wife, who was in another room; "Mary, wheer's that old watch?"
"I have it upstairs, in an old rosewood writing-desk," replied she.
"Just fetch it down; I want to look at it." He listened at the door, until he heard her footsteps going upstairs; and then he turned to me, chuckling and rubbing his hands; and, slapping me on the shoulder, he said, "Now then, old fellow, fill your pipe again! By the Living Jingo, you shall have the time o' day in your pocket before you leave this house." She was a good while in returning; so he shouted up the stairs, "Haven't you found it yet, Mary?"