'What's o'clock?'
[CHAPTER VI]
GNOMELAND
He appeared, sniffed, and sneered,
In a fairy pet.—Child Nature.
For a moment or two Hildegarde stared down at the little man without speaking. Then her face lighted up again, and she replied—
'I am very sorry, sir, that I can't tell you, for I have no watch and I don't know.'
Something like a smile broke over the gnome's countenance.
'All right,' he said, 'you don't know, and you don't pretend you do. And I don't want to know. Here in our country,' and he waved his hand in a lordly fashion, 'we have nothing to do with clocks and watches, and time and hours, and all such fiddle-faddle. We leave that to the poor folk who can't settle things for themselves, but have to be ruled by the sun and the moon, and the stars too, for all I know. Some people up there, where you come from, fancy we make the cuckoo-clocks down here, but that's all nonsense—we wouldn't waste our time over such rubbish.'