"The miserable quibbler!" thought Hanbury, somewhat relieved. "I dare say he considers this a telling kind of pun. I am very sorry I did not face the newspapers, rather than bring him here. I must have been mad to think of introducing him."
"And what kind of clock do you admire most, Mr. Leigh?" asked Mrs. Ashton, smiling now. She set down the little man with the short deformed body as an eccentric being, who had a taste for verbal tricks, by some supposed to be pleasantries.
"I prefer, madam, the clocks that go."
"Fast or slow?"
"Fast. It is better to beat the sun than to be beaten by the sun."
"But are not the clocks that go correctly the best of all?"
"When a clock marks twenty-five hours to the day we live twenty-five hours to the day: when it marks twenty-three we live twenty-three. There are thus two hours a day in favour of going fast."
"But," said Hanbury, who suddenly recovered his good humour or semblance of it; for Leigh was not doing or saying anything outrageous, and Dora had risen from her seat by the window and was coming towards them. "It does not make any difference whether you go fast or slow, each spindle will wear out in its allotted number of revolutions, no matter what the speed."
"No," said Leigh, his eyes flashing as he caught sight of Miss Ashton "The machinery is not so liable to rust or the oil to clog when going fast as when going slow. Fluidity of the oil ensures the minimum of friction. Besides, it is better to wear out than to rust out."
"That depends," laughed Hanbury, "on what you are or what you do. Would you like, for instance, to wear out our hangman?"