than half of them simultaneously busy, and their differences of opinion
as to the hour were radical and irreconcilable. The big, emphatic
eight-day, opposite the front door, might proclaim that it was eleven,
only to be at once contradicted by the little tinkler on the parlor
mantel, which announced that it was six, thereby starting up the
cathedral case on the stairway and the Grandfather in the dining-room,
who held out respectively for eight and two, while all the time it was
really half-past one. Thence arose in the early days painful
misunderstandings on the part of Our Square, for we are a simple people
and deem it the duty of a timepiece to keep time. In particular we were
befooled by Grandfather, the solemn-voiced Ananias of a clock with a
long-range stroke and a most convincing manner. So that Schepstein, the
note-shaver, on his way to a profitable appointment at 11 A.M., heard
the hour strike (thirty-five minutes in advance of the best professional
opinion) from the House of Silvery Voices, and was impelled to the
recklessness of hiring a passing taxi, thereby reaching his destination
with half an hour to spare and half a dollar to lack, for which latter
he threatened to sue the Mordaunt Estate's tenant. To the credit side of
the house's account it must be set down that MacLachan, the tailor,
having started one of his disastrous drunks within the precincts of his
Home of Fashion, was on his way to finish it in the gutter via the
zigzag route from corner saloon to corner saloon, when the Twelve
Apostles clock in the basement window lifted up its voice and
(presumably through the influence of Peter) thrice denied the hour,
which was actually a quarter before midnight. "Losh!" said MacLachan,
who invariably reacted in tongue to the stimulus of Scotch whiskey,
"they'll a' be closed. Hame an' to bed wi' ye, waster of the priceless
hours!" And back he staggered to sleep it off.

Then there was the disastrous case of the Little Red Doctor, who set out