"You may be right, of course," replied Smithson, "though it certainly begins with an A."
"True," I corrected. "Anno Domini."
"Conceivably—but the second letter is a U."
I left Smithson painfully to reconstruct A-U-G-U-S-T from among the ivy. He had got to the M of a long date when a burst of sun cast a crisp shadow across the dial.
"I don't think much of GEORGE STEPHENSON after all," I said. "His beastly clock doesn't know the right time."
Smithson snorted. Here was a challenge to the omniscient.
"That's all right," he said, recovering himself in a moment "All properly constructed dials have a compensating table; we shall find one no doubt behind the ivy; there! I see it, to the left—a compensating table by which you have to correct the actual record of the shadow. For example, we are now in Lat. 55 N. The month is April. At Greenwich—"
But I wasn't listening. A bright truth had flashed into my mind, and I couldn't hold myself back any longer. "It's just about an hour slow," I said. "You don't think that Daylight Saving has anything to do with it, do you?"
