"That is all. On some was a single bell; on others crudely carved wooden figures beat out the hour on a series of bells. All these were known as 'clocks,' the term 'horologe' not yet being in common use."
"Horologe!" repeated Christopher slowly. "You don't suppose that word has anything to do with the Latin hora, meaning hour, do you?"
"I suppose it has a good deal," McPhearson returned with a dry smile.
"Really!" Plainly Christopher was delighted by this discovery. "Well, well! Old Cæsar, Esquire, isn't so bad, after all. Hora! I never expected to see the day that stuff would be of any earthly use."
"I told you all you needed to do with what you learn is to link it to something else."
"But I never seemed to be able to hook it on before," confided the lad frankly. "Gee, but it makes me chesty! I'm pleased to death with myself!"
To save himself the old Scotchman could not but chuckle at his companion's naïve satisfaction.
"Somehow it's a bit tough to get this linking-up idea just when I can't do any more studying," added the boy a trifle wistfully.
"Oh, you will be back at school before long, son; and if you go back more eager to learn will that not be a gain?"
"Sure it will! Hora! Jove! I made a neat guess, didn't I? And that's where that horologium you were talking about came from, too. I'm not so worse. Miss Alden, my Latin teacher, would fall in a faint if she heard me rolling out these Latin derivatives, I'll bet. I'm not often taken this way. Say, Mr. McPhearson, I seem to be learning quite a lot if I'm not in school. This is a darn pleasanter way to do it, too."