"Are you going, sonny?"
"Yes, I guess I'll quit bothering you and bother Mr. McPhearson for a while. Dad said I mustn't make too long calls on people."
Moving off, the lad called the elevator and ascended to the fourth floor where he found his friend, the Scotchman, in the lowest of spirits.
"Well, she's gone!" exclaimed he mournfully. "I couldn't in conscience keep her here any longer when she was running so well."
"The bracket clock, you mean?"
"I do. I sent Hammond with her. He should have brains enough to land her at home without jouncing the life out of her; and he ought to be able to put her in place and make sure she is ticking even. If not, I shall have to go up where she lives and make sure for myself."
"You don't often leave the shop, do you?"
"Oh, sometimes. I haven't lately because it hasn't happened to be necessary. Moreover, I have had a good deal to do right here. The fall is my season for trotting about. After houses have been closed all summer and owners have neglected their clocks, I have to go round and start them again. What a barbarous custom it is to let clocks run down and stand idle for months! Why, if asked to do so, we can always send reliable men into houses to wind the clocks and keep them regulated. It costs only a trifle and pays in the end, if people were only aware of it. A clock neither wants nor needs a rest. On the contrary it is never so happy as when it is ticking. The woman who stopped her clock nights so it should not be wearing out the works did it no kindness."
A peal of appreciative laughter came from Christopher.
McPhearson reached for a small traveling clock and unscrewed the back of it.