they are the first ones to fuss if the poor things fail to
keep good time. I wonder how they would like, for example, to have their
meals served to them just whenever somebody happened to think of it."

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.
By that, I mean they have finer traits. They go quietly ahead and do
their work without bluster or complaint. When they don't it is usually
because something's the matter with them. They are patient, faithful,
useful, and were they to be taken out of the world they would be
terribly missed and would leave it a pretty higgledy-piggledy place."

"I guess there is no danger of the world being without clocks," returned
Christopher comfortably. "There seem to be plenty to go round."

"But there weren't always plenty," broke in McPhearson quickly. "You
chance to live in a fortunate age, young man, and do not half appreciate
your blessings. Had you lived a few hundred years ago you would have had
no clocks."

"Mercy on us! Why, how on earth did people manage to get on without
them?"

"Primitive persons studied the sun and calculated by that," McPhearson
responded. "Then some ingenious creature thought out the sundial whereby
the hour could be gauged by a shadow; also marks were made where the sun
would strike at a given time--perhaps at noon. Such a notch was called
the noon mark."

"Oh, gee! But suppose there was no sun?"

"Exactly! Now you have put your finger on the pulse of the dilemma! What
was to be done when there was no sun? The sundial at best was none too
correct. In different latitudes, too, different markings were needed.
Moreover, a sundial, to be of practical value, had to be kept steady.
What was to happen on shipboard? On cloudy days? At night?"

"The sundial was about as much good as a fan would be in Greenland,"
grinned Christopher.

"Yes, just about. It was these sunless hours that were the problem."

"Hum