"It does not profess to be a timekeeper," replied the Captain. "Any ordinary clock will tell you the time. This does more—it instructs and entertains. It keeps us alive at nights. I like a clock that announces itself. Last Sunday evening, when in church, I distinctly heard the explosion, the clock being then seven hours slow, and it seemed to me a very homely sound."
"I hope Mrs. Drake ain't nervous," said one of the ladies.
"No, indeed," came the reply. "I lived for ten years next door to one of the trade union halls. I find it very quiet here."
"I reckon this would be another clock," said the Gentle Shepherd, staring at a grandfatherly shape in the corner.
"No, my friend, that is an Egyptian mummy."
"One o' they what used to go about on Christmas Eve in the gude old days what be gone vor ever!" exclaimed the Yellow Leaf with great interest.
"Not a mummer, but a body, a corpse—dried up and withered," explained the Captain.
"Same as I be nearly," murmured the Yellow Leaf; while some of the women screamed and some giggled, one hoping the creature was quite dead, another dreadfully afraid there had been a murder, and a third trusting she wouldn't have to adorn some parlour when she was took.
"Can he do anything, Captain—sing and dance, or tell ye what the weather's going to be?" asked Squinting Jack.
"'Tis a matter of taste, but I couldn't fancy corpses as furniture," observed the Dumpy Philosopher.