“Get out of the way, ugly lever,” snarled one monstrous hunter watch near me, big enough for an ordinary clock. “Who do you suppose wants you? Get out of the way, do you hear?”
“Where to?” I inquired, not altogether liking to be so summarily ordered about, and yet finding the excitement of a little quarrel pleasant after two years’ monotony.
“Anywhere, as long as you get out of my way. Do you know I’m a hundred years old?”
“Are you, though?” said I. “People must have had bigger pockets in those days than they have now!”
This I considered a very fair retort for his arrogance, and left him snorting and croaking to himself, and bullying some other little watches, whom, I suppose, he imagined would be more deferential to his grey hairs than I was.
I was not destined, however, to be left in peace.
“Who are you?” I heard a sharp voice say. Looking round, I saw a creature with a great eye in the middle of his face, and a long, lanky hand spinning round and round over his visage.
“Who are you, rather?” I replied.
It was evidently what he wanted, for he began at once: “I’m all the latest improvements—compensation balance and jewelled in four holes; perfect for time, beauty, and workmanship; sound, strong, and accurate; with keyless action, and large full-dial second hand; air-tight, damp-tight, and dust-tight; seven guineas net and five per cent, to teetotalers. There, what do you think of that?”
“I think,” said I, with a laugh, in which a good many others joined, “that if you’re so tight as all that teetotalers had better do without you.”