them, as you call it (and you might just as well try to "regulate" a
London tom-cat). But you do all this, not from any selfish motives,
but from a sense of duty to the clock itself. You want to feel that,
whatever may happen, you have done the right thing by it, and that no
blame can attach to you.

So far as looking to it for any return is concerned, that you never
dream of doing, and consequently you are not disappointed. You ask
what the time is, and the girl replies:

"Well, the clock in the dining-room says a quarter past two."

But you are not deceived by this. You know that, as a matter of fact,
it must be somewhere between nine and ten in the evening; and,
remembering that you noticed, as a curious circumstance, that the
clock was only forty minutes past four, hours ago, you mildly admire
its energies and resources, and wonder how it does it.

I myself possess a clock that for complicated unconventionality and
light-hearted independence, could, I should think, give points to
anything yet discovered in the chronometrical line. As a mere
time-piece, it leaves much to be desired; but, considered as a
self-acting conundrum, it is full of interest and variety.

I heard of a man once who had a clock that he used to say was of no
good to any one except himself, because he was the only man who
understood it. He said it was an excellent clock, and one that you
could thoroughly depend upon; but you wanted to know it--to have
studied its system. An outsider might be easily misled by it.