'Ah! clock wrong now!'

He leaned back like a man who can no longer carry his burdens, informing
Jonathan, on his coming up to place the roll of bread and firm butter,
that he was forty seconds too fast, as if it were a capital offence, and
he deserved to step into Eternity for outstripping Time.

'But, I daresay, you don't understand the importance of a minute,' said
the old gentleman, bitterly. 'Not you, or any of you. Better if we had
run a little ahead of your minute, perhaps--and the rest of you! Do you
think you can cancel the mischief that's done in the world in that
minute, sir, by hurrying ahead like that? Tell me !'

Rather at a loss, Jonathan scanned the clock seriously, and observed that
it was not quite a minute too fast.

The old gentleman pulled out his watch. He grunted that a lying clock
was hateful to him; subsequently sinking into contemplation of his
thumbs,--a sign known to Jonathan as indicative of the old gentleman's
system having resolved, in spite of external outrages, to be fortified
with calm to meet the repast.

It is not fair to go behind an eccentric; but the fact was, this old
gentleman was slightly ashamed of his month's vagrancy and cruel conduct,
and cloaked his behaviour toward the Aurora, in all the charges he could
muster against it. He was very human, albeit an odd form of the race.

Happily for his digestion of Thursday, the cook, warned by Jonathan, kept
the old gentleman's time, not the Aurora's: and the dinner was correct;