Punch: Punch (75.1878)

THE HARD-HEADED BREED.

Sympathising Bystanders (about an unfortunate Man icho has leen knocked down, and stunned by the Train). " Pook Man ! Take him
to the Station-"

Injured One (recovering). " Tyek me to th' Station ? What foe, then ? If aw've dune ont Harm to yo'r Engine, aw's
willin' to Pay foe't ! "

At the end of this passage something looms out upon us which
strikes me, at first, as not unlike a pump, without the handle.

Nearer approach shows it to be a gaunt, melancholy, yet military-
looking, clock. It bears a fanciful resemblance to a highly-finished

" No, Sir," says a footman afterwards coming upon me suddenly,
(everyone comes across everyone else suddenly in Josslyn_ Dyke's
house, they are all surprise passages), while I am examining this
clock ; examining, but not consulting it any more than I should think

sentry-box in dark wood, with a front door to it, which the sentry of consulting a nonagenarian physician who had lost his memory—

could lock after him when he felt cold, and went in. If he opened
it now and stepped out, I don't think I should be very much sur-
prised. I am sure Gool wouldn't be. If goblin Jack Horners are
in all the dark corners, eating phantom Christmas pies—goblin'
goblins—then there is another phantom Jack-in-the-box, m the
sentry-box, who comes out perhaps when the clock sounds mid-
night. Involuntarily I take out my watch to compare London time
with what they accept as the correct thing down here, so as to accom-
modate myself to my host's views in regard to punctuality at meals.

But the clock's face gives me no information. It is a yellowish
complexion, which, being of metal, was once, perhaps, as bold as
brass, but now the numbers are almost illegible, except the ten and
the two, which form a pair of eyes on either side of a little round
discoloured button of a nose, from which depend, at two acute
angles, left and right, two straight dark lines, really the hands,
which have the appearance of moustachios of the same period as the
house—i.e., the Elizabethan.

" That clock, Sir," observes Gool the butler, solemnly, in answer
to my inquiry—"that clock never tells the time. It never has done,
since I've been here." He says it with pride, and with a touch of
sympathy in his voice, that makes him, for a second, almost human,
at all events, a trifle less ghostly. I notice, afterwards, that when
Josslyn speaks of his clock he does so in the same tone of affectionate
pride,_as one would do of a superannuated servant who had done his
work in his day, and had become a pensioner of the family.

no, Sir. You can never get the time from that clock. We always
take it from the one in the hall or the kitchen. The little one in the
dining-room ain't much use ; it goes well enough, but it generally
gets very fast."

Of course, the little one in the dining-room is scarcely fifteen years
old. A giddy thing, bright and Frenchified (the gift of some kind
friend who wanted to brighten up the general gloominess of The
Mote), a go-a-head sort of fellow, a kind of clock that never pays_ in
the end, always tick, tick, tick, always fast, thoroughly unprin-
cipled, never to be relied on for a moment, much less for an hour.

But the old Clock on the Stairs that never will tell the time! That
keeps Us own counsel in its own case ! That not by sound, or sign,
ever lets out its secret. That watches everything and says nothing !
Why is this clock silent ? Did it neglect to speak once, on some fear-
fully important occasion, when its voice ought to have forbidden the
banns of marriage, and, as the penalty, had ever afterwards to hold
its tongue ? I must ask Josslyn Dyke about this clock. Proceed,
Cool, this confidential clock interests me much.

Through a small door into a narrow passage. Through another
small door, and on to another staircase. More doors, more corners,
dimly lighted by one gas jet shining through a pale green medium.
One more door. My chamber.

Our entrance with the candle seems to disperse the shadows which
were gathered about the hearth, as if the superior Phantom Butler had
said "Come! No loitering about here! It won't do, you know