It was fun, indeed, and all went well until [pg 158] after dinner, when Jack—saying, “Well, maybe we’d better be starting back for that train”—drew out his watch. He opened it, muttered something, put it to his ear, then began to wind it rapidly. He wound and wound. We all laughed.
“Looks as if you hadn’t remembered to wind it last night,” said Jonathan, glancing at me.
“I haven’t done that in months, hang it! Give me the time, will you, Jonathan?” said Jack.
“Sorry!” Jonathan was smiling genially. “Mine’s run down too. It stopped at twenty-two minutes before five—A. M., I think.”
“What luck! And Molly didn’t bring hers.”
“You told me not to,” Molly flicked in.
“So here we are,” said Jonathan, “entirely without the time of day.”
“But plenty of real time all round us,” I said. “Let’s use it, and start.” I avoided Jonathan’s eye.
We reached the station with an hour and ten minutes to spare—bought more ginger-cookies [pg 159] and more milk. As we sat eating them in the midst of the preternatural calm that marks a country railroad station outside of train times, Molly remarked brightly,—
“Well, I don’t see but we got on just as well without a watch, didn’t we, Jack? Why do we need watches, anyway? Do you see?” she turned to us. “Jack does everything by his watch—eats and breathes and sleeps by it—”