makes there is," McPhearson
explained. "Years ago Edward Howard, the founder of the Howard Clock
Company, began clockmaking as a pupil of Aaron Willard, Junior. Howard
was a boy of only sixteen at the time, and for five years he studied
clocks under this excellent tutelage. Do not imagine, however, that this
balcony clock of ours was made by Mr. Howard himself. What your father
meant was that built into the background of the Howard Company were the
Willard traditions and ideas."

"Then really Aaron Willard hadn't much to do with our clock," remarked
Christopher, disappointment in his voice.

"Not directly, no. Still you have no cause for complaint on that score.
The Howard clock is a more modern product, that is all. Mr. Howard, like
Mr. Willard, left his imprint on both the American clock and watch
industries, holding for years a very unique place in their development.
Moreover he founded a great business that now gives to us clocks of
almost every design. Many are for the interiors of public buildings such
as halls, stores, churches, offices, and railway stations. Others are
for towers or steeples. Some have illuminated dials and some are
electric watch clocks. Therefore do not waste your tears lamenting that
your father does not possess an old Willard balcony clock. It would be
an interesting thing to own, I don't deny that; but what you already
have is as good a timepiece as can be procured anywhere. 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. "Edward Howard, as I told you, had a generous part in
doing this, not only in the clock world but also in the realm of
watches."

"How did he connect up with the watches?"

"Well, you see, early America had very few watchmakers," was the reply.
"There were, it is true, numerous persons who dubbed themselves
watchmakers and who, like myself, could repair a watch; but they could
not make one. Therefore watchmaking as an industry did not exist in this
cou