"No. I certainly never saw a clock with a brass handle on top to carry it by," confessed Christopher.
"And what do you say to its glass back and its beautifully chased works?" McPhearson turned his treasure round. "It was made to set on a table you see, or before the mirror that hung above the fireplace, in either of which spots the back of it would show almost as much as the front. Therefore its works were engraved, that one side should be quite as pleasing as the other."
"It's a beauty, isn't it?"
"So you never saw an old fellow like this, eh?" Page [24].
"Well, you won't see many like it," the Scotchman asserted proudly. "Not but what a good number of them were turned out in England between 1670 and 1750. But that was a long while ago, and things get scattered and are crowded out by newer fashions; besides, antique clocks are not always cared for and kept running. Then, too, it isn't always possible to find people who understand repairing such old fellows," McPhearson explained modestly. "As I said, they have to be taken as special cases and no end of thought put into them. More clocks are ruined by ignorant doctoring than by anything else. This one, thank goodness, has evidently always had intelligent care; if it hadn't it would not be ticking now."
Gently the man put his burden on the workbench.
It was a square clock with arched top and brass feet; and its face, suggesting that of a grandfather clock, was quaintly decorated with garlands of red roses. It had beautifully pierced hands, small brass cherub's heads at the corners, and at the top a single small hand pointed to its musical repertoire which consisted of: cotillion, jig, minuet, song, air, dance, and hymn.
"You can take your choice of tunes, you see," explained McPhearson. "There is one for every day of the week. All you have to do is to shift the indicator round to what your want to hear. It chimes every three hours—at six, nine, twelve, and three o'clock, and just before the music begins, it strikes one to indicate the hour."