to attend a highly interesting consultation at 4 P.M. and, hearing
Grandfather Ananias strike three, erroneously concluded that he had
spare time to stop in for a peek at Madame Tallafferr's gout (which was
really vanity in the guise of tight shoes), and reached the hospital,
only to find it all over and the patient dead.

"It's an outrage," declared the Little Red Doctor fiercely, "that an old
lunatic can move in here from God-knows-where in a pushcart and play
merry hell with a hard-working practitioner's professional duties. And
you're the one to tell him so, Dominie. You're the diplomat of
the Square."

He even inveigled the Bonnie Lassie into backing him up in this
preposterous proposal. She had her own grievance against the House of
Silvery Voices.

"It isn't the way it plays tricks on time alone," said she. "There's one
clock in there that's worse than conscience."

And she brought her indictment against a raucous timepiece which was
wont to lead up to its striking with a long, preliminary
clack-and-whirr, alleging that twice, when she had quit her sculping
early because the clay was obdurate and wouldn't come right, and had
gone for a walk to clear her vision, the clock had accosted her in these
unjustifiable terms:

"Clacketty-whirr-rr-rr! Back-to-yer-worr-rr-rrk! Yerr-rr-rr-rr _wrong!
wrong! wrong! wrong!"_

"Wherefore," said the Bonnie Lassie, "your appellant prays that you be a