Another strange clock was exhibited some years ago in Liverpool. It was constructed of pins, buttons, and all sorts of odds and ends by a pauper named Mercer. The maker of this extraordinary time-piece thus describes it himself: The back and the front of the clock were made from iron bed-laths, while the barrel was part of a large brass ferule, the ends being brass buttons hammered out. The barrel arbor had originally been the blade of a shoe-maker's awl; the main and several other wheels were nothing more nor less than suspender buttons from the maker's own trousers, while the cog teeth were portions of bygone knitting-needles. The teeth of the centre wheels had been boot-rivets. In the dial there were one hundred separate pieces.
A NONSENSE RHYME.
Oh, wouldn't it be splendid,
Oh, wouldn't it be grand,
If I could play the ear-drum
In an elastic band!
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Begun in Harper's Round Table No. 845.