"Thet's more ner you knows," replied old Reuben. "What der you know about folks's hours as lived ages ago? You jest let other folks's hours alone, as p'raps knowed better ner you. Mebbe their hours was longer—what did I say this wery day about the hours a-bein' shorter now than wot they was thirty year agone? But I tell yer wot: it 'ud make a notionable kind of clock if we was to bore the 'ole a bit bigger and jest manage to git it right for the hours."
So they drilled and filed and tried to chip; and after much labour they made the hole large enough to let out the water from one mark to the next in sixty minutes.
And all the while there hovered around them, invisible, the spirit of him that fashioned the bowl, longing to speak what it knew; but its time for returning to the flesh was not yet—but it was coming.
V.
The nineteenth century was ancient history, when one day, in a breathless, hurrying world, a busy City man was borne electrically home to his suburban villa one hundred miles from the City.
"They sat and smoked for two hours."
He was tired and morose, and a settled worry clouded his face.
"What is it to-day, John?" asked his wife. "Done nothing again?"
