Sara Ware Bassett

“ Christopher had not dreamed there was so much to know about precious stones, let alone all the wealth of romance connected with them as Mr. Rhinehart had stored up.
He could tell you where were the largest diamonds, rubies, and emeralds in the world; who owned them, and what they were worth; could give the history of many of the finest pearls and celebrated necklaces made from them; and at his tongue's end were stories regarding various gems as thrilling and delightful as any Arabian Night's tales. ”

“ Nevertheless Christopher continued to regard him attentively, studying the white hand with its long, slender fingers. It was a very clean hand for such a poorly dressed individual to boast. It did not look at all in keeping with the clumsy boots, the frayed trousers, the worn ulster, the battered satchel. It did not appear ever to have done a stroke of work in its life.
Suppose the hand was genuine, and the rest only a disguise? Suppose in reality this was Stuart, the criminal for whom both the Chicago and New York police were searching? ”

“ It had beautifully pierced hands, small brass cherub's heads at the corners, and at the top a single small hand pointed to its musical repertoire which consisted of: cotillion, jig, minuet, song, air, dance, and hymn.
"You can take your choice of tunes, you see," explained McPhearson. "There is one for every day of the week. All you have to do is to shift the indicator round to what your want to hear. It chimes every three hours—at six, nine, twelve, and three o'clock, and just before the music begins, it strikes one to indicate the hour." ”

“ Rhinehart was not just a man; he was a walking story-book, and, like McPhearson, a thoroughly delightful companion. Oh, he did not consider his job a humdrum one, it was easy to see that. He had lifted the traffic of jeweled ornaments, by means of which he earned his daily bread, out of the class of mere salesmanship.
"You never get tired of your work, do you, Mr. Rhinehart?" commented Christopher, when on a day trade was light, he stood listening to the alluring adventure of a string of black pearls. ”

“ Mr. Rhinehart, Hollings, McPhearson, old Saunders—all of them had had a part in it—and they said it was because they had become fond of him and admired him for being so cheerful and patient about his eyes. Their kindness overwhelmed him and brought a queer, tight, choky feeling into his throat. He didn't deserve any of the things Mr. Rhinehart said. It didn't seem to him that he had been very patient. On the contrary, he had often rebelled inside at being so helpless. ”

“ So remember, in journeying through the world, if you ever run across a clock or a watch made by Thomas Tompion, you are looking at a very fine bit of handicraft."
"I'm afraid I never shall," Christopher shook his head.
"One never can tell where his path through life will take him," McPhearson said. "For example, I never expected my wanderings would lead me from Glasgow to America. Nor, probably, did Stuart dream when he woke up to-day that his morning ride in a Fifth Avenue bus would land him in jail. So you must not despair of seeing London and some of Thomas Tompion's clocks. ”

“ And considering it is, don't you think, Ebenezer, it has earned the right to a little independence?" McPhearson inquired of the darky, a twinkle in his eye.
But Ebenezer shook his head.
"Mr. Hawley done say no clock can go strikin' by herself—no matter how old she is," Ebenezer asserted, without hint of a smile. "He say there's no excuse for it—no excuse!" ”

“ No one blushes for a Howard clock or needs to blush. Mr. Howard, along with Willard, deserves great credit for building up this successful business of his, for when he began it he started out all by himself in a little shop not over thirty feet square."
"It's a wonderful thing to found a big business, isn't it?" reflected Christopher.
"Yes, to set going a flourishing industry that not only provides bread and butter for hundreds of workmen but also furnishes the public with a well-made commodity that it needs is a great service to civilization," said McPhearson. ”

“ Meantime his friend was called on for his opinion and advised sympathetically. Christopher pursed his lips scornfully. The two were like a pair of vain old peacocks and silly as women, thought he. How foolish for men to be wearing jewels, anyway. You wouldn't catch him arrayed in a big diamond ring. And the strangest part of it was that the man who was thus frittering away his money did not look at all like a fop but was tall, muscular, and had a scar, not unlike a sword cut, across his right cheek. ”

“ Yet the works of a good man follow him and in numberless homes, in public buildings, on church spires, honored monuments to the memory of Simon Willard still survive—monuments far more useful than are inert blocks of marble—monuments that pulse with life and keep hourly before those who look upon them the thought of one who performed for his fellow men a practical and enduring service. ”

“ It is an interesting subject and one that never seems to exhaust itself. For all the wonders of my trade are not yet told. When, for instance, they put the clock on the Metropolitan Life Insurance building here in New York an undreamed-of pinnacle in clock construction was reached. There was a time when the clock on the London Houses of Parliament was the last word in the art—a veritable triumph of the horologe. Not only was it the largest timepiece in the world, but it seemed then the most miraculous. ”

“ Round and round in a circle went he and Christopher, the lad constantly trying to brighten and encourage, and the clerk as invariably bringing up with this same doleful plaint. He was not to be comforted.
In the meantime Christopher, along with offering optimistic and repeated assertions that the diamonds would surely be found, was gleaning a surprising amount of information as he flitted about the store. He learned not only of clocks but interesting bits concerning the value and cutting of gems, the repairing of jewelry; the patterns of silverware, strange facts about pearls. ”

“ Mr. Norcross hurried into his office; Mrs. Burton opened her bag and once more began to fumble with her foolish gauzy samples; and Mr. Burton took up from his desk a handful of letters and glanced curiously over them. Even Mr. Rhinehart, Hollings, and the others scattered to their awaiting tasks, and Christopher and McPhearson were left alone.
"That's a present worth having, isn't it?" the boy cried with delight.
"It is like a dream come true," the Scotchman answered, with misty eyes. ”

“ Christopher exclaimed with enthusiasm.
"It is a glory to this Richard Parsons' skill that two hundred years after he made his clock it is still accurately performing its task. If anything I made was in existence at the end of a like stretch of time and was continuing to be useful, I should feel I had a right to be proud, shouldn't you?"
"You bet I would. Nothing I make ever stays together more than a week." ”

“ Christopher responded.
"You'd think so, and so would I if I had not handled so many and learned otherwise. No, every clock has its personality, its little tricks. One doesn't like a cold room, perhaps, and as a protest will stop or lose time; another shows its disapproval of the heat by being ten minutes fast. Still another balks at an incline in the mantelpiece, so slight that nobody can see it, and will not tick even. ”

“ He sauntered along the balcony in the wake of a red-cheeked young clerk who had bowed to him pleasantly and looked less as if he were speeding to save a burning ship or warn the king he was about to be blown up than did some of the others; and when this guide turned into a long, brilliantly lighted room, Christopher, having nothing better to do, entered too.
"You haven't finished that bracket clock yet, have you, McPhearson?" called the salesman, approaching [18] a little old man who with a microscope to one eye was bending over a bench littered with small steel tools. ”

“ The public does not always know a good product from a bad one, and all except the expert can be easily fooled. But a watch proclaims its own worth. It has to go and has to keep accurate time or all the world will know it. If it fails to do the work it was bought to do, people won't buy it. Therefore that these results may be reached and a satisfactory article put on the market there must be money enough to house a large plant, pay skilled and high-priced workmen, supply the best of material, and tempt into the industry men of brains. ”

“ Christopher explained. "We are always starting out into the suburbs just when New York is beginning to wake up."
"New York can hardly be called asleep at any time," McPhearson chuckled, "so I must take your lamentation with a grain of salt. But it is rather of a pity you shouldn't have had the chance to see that clock after dark. Not that it isn't beautiful in the daylight. Its chimes certainly ring just as sweetly one time as another. ”

“ Therefore I would counsel those who own the old aristocrats produced by skilled makers to hold on to them, even if they venerate neither their history nor their age. They may discard a treasure they cannot equal or replace. On the face of it, it stands to reason that any mechanism which will run two centuries or more was turned out by a workman who knew what he was about."
"That's what Mr. McPhearson thinks," said Christopher, rising. "Clocks are almost people to him." ”

“ Certainly to waste another person's time is criminal—the actual stealing of a valuable commodity that can never be replaced."
"People who are late never seem to consider themselves thieves," grinned Christopher.
"They ought to," McPhearson answered solemnly. "Everybody's time has a money equivalent in these days. If a man keeps me waiting or [85] talks my time away, he robs me of five or ten or twenty dollars, according to the length of the interval he has kept me from my work." ”

“ Now all workmen, alas, are jealous for their own prestige and the artisans belonging to the London Clockmakers' Company were no exception to this rule. All of them were ready enough to seize greedily upon the bright ideas of any craftsman following their line of trade and they resented it bitterly if not allowed to do so. Moreover, that it was Nicolas Facio, a Swiss, and not one of their own number who had stumbled upon this clever device was galling indeed. ”

“ Then, and not until then, was Christopher urged to action. He awakened as out of a dream, wondering whether what he had witnessed was real, and if it was, what he ought to do. The two fur-coated gentlemen were almost at the door. If he was to do anything at all, it must be now. Fortunately a stairway was at no great distance; and he raced down it as fast as his feet would carry him. When he reached the street floor, the door had, alas, closed on the suspected thieves. It came to him now how much wiser it would have been had he shouted from the balcony, instead of waiting to descend. ”

“ The Scotchman sighed, then added, "Sometimes I envy them their leisure."
Once more he turned the clock round so Christopher could see its old-fashioned face gay with dainty vines and flowers.
"I declare if it isn't almost twelve o'clock," ejaculated he. "It's only three minutes behind schedule to-day. Still we must get it down finer than that. Besides, I'd rather it gained than lost time; losing is a grievous fault. Now what selection shall we play? Choose quickly for there isn't much leeway—"
"I'll have the dance."
"On with the dance!" McPhearson exclaimed gayly. ”

“ Christopher nodded agreement with the sentiment.
"To be sure," McPhearson continued, "people sometimes own clocks that aren't worth much pains. Still, it's only right to keep them cleaned and help them to do the best they can, even at that. All clocks can't be Tompions, or Grahams, or Quares, any more than we can all be Washingtons and Lincolns. It isn't their fault nor ours."
"You care a lot about clocks, don't you?" meditated Christopher aloud.
"I suppose I do," the old man confessed. "Clocks have come to be almost people to me; in fact, some of them are a good sight better than people. ”

“ You could also see the clock at Berne while you were about it—a clever mechanism made by the Swiss in 1527. Berne, as you doubtless know, if you have faithfully studied your geography, took its name from the word bären, meaning bears; and you know, too, how it came about that the Swiss selected that name for it. In all the shops you will find large and small bears for sale, all carved from wood and converted to every imaginable purpose. ”

“ At the sound the bearded old man raises his sceptre, opens his mouth, and turns an hourglass. And at each stroke of the bell a bear nods his head. All this done, the cock crows again and the fantastic pantomime is finished. ”

“ Willard himself may frequently have been forced to drop his tools and, since his children were young and motherless, attend to this bothersome duty. For fathers played a more intimate part in the homes of that generation than they do now. At any rate he was certainly familiar with the problems that entered into the cooking of the family dinner—just how heavy and clumsy were the big, awkward clock-jacks imported from England, how costly they were, and all. So he took the matter in hand and invented a clock-jack that was much better than the imported one. ”