Then it rang out eight clear strokes, and the jolly red moon, which for two weeks had been slowly rising in the space above the clock's face to show how the month was passing by, and which was now full and round, like the real moon out-of-doors—this jolly red clock-moon seemed to wink waggishly at the children.
"Hurry! scurry! Here it is eight o'clock, going on nine—next comes ten—eleven—twelve. Half the night gone, and you not in bed yet."
How its eyes twinkled! It nearly burst its fat cheeks laughing at its own joke.
Out the door, up the uncarpeted stairs, clattered the boys—Solomon and Isaac, Elias and John, Philemon and Romeo Augustus.
They all gave a nod to the clock-moon. "Good-night, old fellow," they said. All but Romeo Augustus. He did not like the clock. That is what this story is about.
Solomon and Isaac marched off to their own chamber. They would not condescend to associate with "the babes." Solomon and Isaac were twins. They were, as I have told you before, ancient. They were fourteen years old. Philemon and Romeo Augustus were only eight, and they knew no pleasure equal to that of sitting bolt-upright in their trundle-bed while Elias peered down at them over the foot-board of his bed, and told them stories with gestures.
"Tell us about the clock," said Philemon, on this occasion.
But at this suggestion Romeo Augustus—poor little Romeo Augustus!—quaked in his red flannel night-gown.
Elias always spoke in deep and dreadful tones when he alluded to the clock.
"Persons don't live inside, but things!" said he; and Romeo Augustus quaked afresh. "Two of them hang in air. They haven't a sign of a head, nor feet, nor arms, nor legs. They just dangle. And the other thing"—here Elias's voice was awful—"the other thing writhes in agony. It is never quiet; never, never, nevermore; not when we're asleep, nor when we're eating our porridge. Forever and forever it writhes—anon."