AN INSTRUCTIVE LITTLE TALE. 



19 



world was out of sight. I seemed to detect in myself a sort of sneaking fellow- 

 feeling for the mummy in the museum, and a desire to swap news with him. I 

 went to a watchmaker again. He took the watch all to pieces while I waited, and 

 then said the barrel was " swelled." He said he could reduce it in three days. 

 After this the watch avefaged well, but nothing more. For half a day it would go 

 like the very mischief, and keep up such a barking and wheezing, and whooping and 

 sneezing and snorting, that I could not hear myself think for the disturbance ; and- 

 as long as it held out there was not a watch in the land that stood any chance- 



against it. But the 

 would keep on 

 fooling along until 

 had left behind 

 So at last, at the 

 hours, it would trot 

 stand all right and 

 would show a fair 

 age, and no man 

 done more or less 

 a correct average is 

 in a watch, and I 

 ment to another 

 said the kingbolt 

 I was glad it was 

 ous. To tell the 

 no idea what the 



rest of the day it", 

 slowing down and; 

 all the clocks it 

 caught up agairw 

 end of twenty-four 

 up to the judges' 

 just in time. It 

 and square aver- 

 could say it had 

 than its duty. But 

 only a mild virtue 

 took this instru- 

 watchmaker. He • 

 was broken. I said.: 

 nothing more seri-- 

 plain truth, I hadi 

 kingbolt was, but li 



did not choose to appear ignorant to a stranger. He repaired the kingbolt, butt 

 what the watch gained in one way it lost in another. It would run awhile and thenj 

 stop awhile, and then run awhile again, and so on, using its own discretion about 

 the intervals. And every time it went off it kicked back like a musket. I padded 

 my breast for a few days, but finally took the watch to another watchmaker. He 

 picked it all to pieces, and turned the ruin over and over under his glass ; and 

 then he said there appeared to be something the matter with the hair-trigger. He 



