"But you will begin another great clock, even a greater one."
For a moment the little man fired up, and seemed about to regain his old insolent combativeness. "Sir, it would be impossible to design a greater."
"Well, let us say as great," said the young man soothingly. He was beginning not only to take an interest in this strange being, but to sympathise with him.
"No, sir. I shall begin no other clock. The sands in my own hour-glass are running low already. When a man of my make endures a great shock and a great disappointment he does not endure much more. He dies. I am glad to meet you again. I am glad it was your arm kept me from falling. I want you to be my friend. I have no friend on earth excepting my poor mother, who is more helpless than I myself. I know what I am asking when I say I want you for my friend. I would not ask you to be my friend the day before yesterday. I would have preferred you for an enemy then, for then I was strong and able to take care of myself. Now I am too weak to be your enemy, and I am fit only to be your friend. You will not spurn me?" He paused in their walk, and looked up anxiously into Hanbury's face.
"Assuredly not. I will do anything I can for you. Please let me know what I can do for you?"
"I may presently, I may later. I may the last thing of all. But not now. Let us walk on. My clock is gone for ever, and on the ruins of my clock I have found a friend. I would much rather have my clock, ten thousand times rather have my clock, than you, but then I knew it so long and so well. If you had made that clock as I had, and had lost it as I have lost it, you would go mad and kill someone, maybe yourself, or perhaps both."
"I am sure I should feel bitterly the loss of so many years of labour."
"Of so many years of labour and love and confidence and pride, the depository of so many hopes, the garden in which grew all the flowers of my mind. Well, while I had the clock, I had a friend in which I could confide. The clock is gone past recall. My mother cannot, poor soul, be expected to understand me. As you have promised to be my friend, I will confide in you. I know I may do so with safety."
"I think you may."
"It is past _thinking_ in me: I _know_. I told you before, I never make mistakes about people." In all this talk Hanbury noticed that the old self-assertive "Hah!" had no place, nor was there any use of eau-de-cologne or reference to it. These had been nothing more than conversational fripperies, and had been laid aside with the spirit of aggression. The manner of aggression still prevailed in the form of thought and manner of expression. "You will be astonished to hear that I was attracted towards you from the moment I saw you in Welbeck Place--the attraction of repulsion, no doubt. But still you were not indifferent to me. I have had so long a life of loneliness and repression, I want a few hours of companionship and free-speaking before I die."