ythe of Time (for I now discovered
the literal import of that classical phrase) had not stopped, nor was
it likely to stop, in its career. Down and still down, it came. It had
already buried its sharp edge a full inch in my flesh, and my
sensations grew indistinct and confused. At one time I fancied myself
in Philadelphia with the stately Dr. Moneypenny, at another in the back
parlor of Mr. Blackwood receiving his invaluable instructions. And then
again the sweet recollection of better and earlier times came over me,
and I thought of that happy period when the world was not all a desert,
and Pompey not altogether cruel.

The ticking of the machinery amused me. Amused me, I say, for my
sensations now bordered upon perfect happiness, and the most trifling
circumstances afforded me pleasure. The eternal click-clak, click-clak,
click-clak of the clock was the most melodious of music in my ears, and
occasionally even put me in mind of the graceful sermonic harangues of
Dr. Ollapod. Then there were the great figures upon the dial-plate--how
intelligent how intellectual, they all looked! And presently they took
to dancing the Mazurka, and I think it was the figure V. who performed
the most to my satisfaction. She was evidently a lady of breeding. None
of your swaggerers, and nothing at all indelicate in her motions. She
did the pirouette to admiration--whirling round upon her apex. I made an
endeavor to hand her a chair, for I saw that she appeared fatigued
with her exertions--and it was not until then that I fully perceived my
lamentable situation. Lamentable indeed! The bar had buried itself two
inches in my neck. I was aroused to a sense of exquisite pain. I prayed
for death, and, in the agony of the moment, could not help repeating
those exquisite verses of the poet Miguel De Cervantes:

Vanny Buren, tan escondida

Query no te senty venny

Pork and pleasure, delly morry

Nommy, torny, darry, widdy!

But now a new horror presented itself, and one indeed sufficient to
startle the strongest nerves. My eyes, from the cruel pressure of
the machine, were absolutely starting from their sockets. While I was
thinking how I should possibly manage without them, one actually tumbled
out of my head, and, rolling down the steep side of the steeple, lodged
in the rain gutter which ran along the eaves of the main building. The
loss of the eye was not so much as the insolent air of independence and
contempt with