“I think from his face that he has suffered much,” said the gentle collector, wise in human pain.
“Me; I suppose I don’t suffer!” pointed out the landlord vehemently. “Fourteen dollars out. Two months’ rent. A bum clock.”
He kicked the shabby case which whizzed and birred and struck five. The voice of its bell, measured and mellow and pure, was unquestionably D in alt.
“My dear sir,” said Stepfather Time urbanely, but quivering underneath his calm manner with the hot eagerness of the chase, “I will buy your clock.”
A gust of rough laughter passed through the crowd. The injurious word “nut” floated in the air, and was followed by “Verrichter.” The landlord took thought and hope.
“It is a very fine clock,” he declared.
“It is a bum clock,” Stepfather Time reminded him mildly.
“Stepnadel, the auctioneer, would pay me much money for it.”
“I will pay you much money for it.”
“How much?”