Watches
however, as every one knows, are a good deal more precocious in their
infancy than human beings. They generally settle down to business as
soon as they are born, without having to spend much of their time either
in the nursery or the schoolroom.

Indeed, after my face and hands had once been well cleaned, and a brand-
new shiny coat had been put on my back, it was years before I found
myself again called upon to submit to that operation which is such a
terror to all mortal children.

As to my education, it lasted just a week; and although I am bound to
say, while it lasted, it was both carefully and skilfully managed, I did
not at all fancy the discipline I was subjected to in the process. I
used to be handed over to a creature who took me up and examined me (as
if he were a policeman and a magistrate combined), and according as I
answered his questions he exclaimed, "You're going too fast," or "You're
going too slow," and with that he set himself to "regulate" me, as he
called it. I was ordered to turn round, take off my coat, and submit my
poor shoulders to his instrument of correction. But why need I describe
this experience to boys? They know what "regulating" means as well as I
do!

Well in due time I profited by the instructions received, and one day my
tutor, after the usual examination, grumpily told me, "You're right at
last; you can go." And I did go, and I've been going ever since.

The troubles of my infancy however were not all over. I discovered at a
very early age that the one thing a watch is never allowed to do is to
go to sleep. They'd as soon think of leaving an infant to starve as of
letting a watch go to sleep.

But to my story. Ever since I had left school--or, in other words, gone
through my due course of regulation--I had remained shut up under a
glass-case, lying comfortably upon a bed of purple velvet, and decorated
with a little white label bearing the mysterious inscription, "Only
Three Guineas." From this stately repose I was only once a day
disturbed in order to be kept from sleeping, and had all the rest of my
time to look about me and observe what went on in the world in which I
found myself.

It was not a big world indeed, but I could see I was not the only
inhabitant. All around me were watches like myself, some of a golden
complexion, and some--of which I was one--of a silvery. Some were big,
and made an awful noise, and some were tiny, and just whispered wh