"Have you the time?" he asked, "I've broken the watch my grandfather gave me."
Marmaduke took out his little Ingersoll with one hand, meanwhile holding on with the other to the beard.
"It's just twelve," he informed the Giant.
"Noon again--my, how Time does fly!" the Giant exclaimed. "It seems as if yesterday were the first noon, and yet that was a couple of million years ago. But we've had only six volcanoes. We must have six more for a noon whistle, so the little gnomes will know it's time for lunch."
There were six more gigantic explosions up on the outside of the earth, then the little gnomes all stopped work, turned up their wheelbarrows, sat down on them in tailor-fashion, took out their lunch-pails, and began to eat. Then the three little Chinamen perched on their irons and took out some bowls and chopsticks. It made the Giant laugh to see their funny antics.
"Ho! ho!" exclaimed he, but he turned away his head in another direction before he laughed.
"I'm laughing in that direction," he explained, "because there's a city full of wicked people up there, on the Earth outside. When I laugh, it's an Earthquake, you see, and I don't want to shake up the good people. Now"--he pointed in another direction--"the town of Five Corners is up about there. You wouldn't want me to try an Earthquake on it, would you?"
Marmaduke thought this was very kind and considerate of the Giant, to try to spare the people in the town where he went to buy candy and to see circuses and things. Then he had an idea.
"Couldn't you shake up the ground a mile or two west of that--see," he pointed his finger at the roof of the pit, "about there. That's where Fatty lives, over near Wally's Creek, and it would do him good to be shaken up by a earthquake--just a little one."
"All right," replied the Giant, "I can accommodate you. But you're running a risk. I might kill your friend Fatty."