SEVEN
The Clock
THERE was once a little clock which had gone steadily for years and years.
It was a good, conscientious little thing, pretty too, but very modest, and it had always kept splendid time.
Then it stopped suddenly one day exactly at eleven. Its works were worn out, and the clock-maker to whom it was sent for repairs returned it with the message that it was not possible to make it go again.
The people to whom it belonged decided to leave it on the mantelshelf where it had always stood. “It’s such a nice little thing,” they said, “and some day we can have new works put into it.” So there it stood without making a movement or uttering the faintest tick. But it was very unhappy. It felt that it was of no real use in the world.
The other things in the room weren’t very nice about it. They used to whisper to one another, and the little clock caught an unkind word now and then that made it unhappier than ever.
“I don’t know why they keep it there. What on earth’s the good of it if it doesn’t go?” said the big grandfather clock. “It never was much use anyway. No chime, and a very poor tick. Of course it’s got no constitution to speak of.” And his brazen face grew even shinier than it had been before, and he gave a self-satisfied little cough and then sang out his quarters as loudly as ever he could.
The cuckoo clock, which lived in the hall, and used to join in the talk when the door was open, actually went so far as to make up a little rhyme about it.
“Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo,” it sang. “What’s the use of you? What’s the use of you? Cuckoo, cuckoo.”
The chairs, which were Chippendale, and tremendously proud of the fact, were quite as rude.