“Six o’clock!” thought the boy in the clock. The very time his mother had told him she was going to be home again “with something very nice for him.” And now she and his brave papa would walk right into the arms of these dreadful English soldiers, and he could not stop them! _Whang!_ What a noise! It startled Brinton so much that he nearly knocked the clock over; and then he realized that it was only the clock striking half-past three. Half-past three! He had been in there only half an hour, and already he was so tired he could hardly stand up. How could he ever endure it until four, until half-past four, five, six? “If only something, some accident even, will happen to detain papa and mamma!” he thought. But how much more likely, it occurred to him, that his father, having but a short leave of absence, would hasten, and arrive before six. “Tick-tock,” went the clock. “How slow, how very slow!” thought Brinton, and he wished there were only some way of hurrying up the time, so that the soldiers would go away. Still the soldiers stayed in the room, all but one, who had gone into the kitchen to watch from there. “Tick-tock,” went the clock, and “whang--whang--whang--whang!” Only four o’clock. Brinton began to fear that he could not hold out much longer. “Tick-tock,” went the clock. Each swing of the pendulum marked one second, Brinton’s mother had told him. If he could only make it swing quicker, so that the seconds would fly a little faster! “Why not try to?” Brinton was on the point of breaking down. He was desperate. He felt that he must do something. He took hold of the pendulum and gave it a little push. It yielded readily to his pressure. None of the soldiers seemed to notice it. He gave it another push. The result was the same. Brinton began to pick up courage, and he pushed the pendulum to and fro, to and fro, to and fro. He tried to keep it swinging at a perfectly even rate, and apparently he succeeded. At any rate, the soldiers appeared to notice nothing different. Yet Brinton was sure that he was causing the old clock to tick off its seconds at a considerably livelier gait than usual. Half-past four came almost before he knew it, but by five o’clock Brinton began to realize that he was very, very tired. He had been standing two hours already in that cramped, dark, close case, and he had pushed the pendulum first with one hand and then with the other in that narrow space until both felt sore and lame. Yet now that he had once begun, he did not dare leave off, and still it did not seem possible that he could keep it up. The soldiers had kept very quiet for a long time. Brinton thought that two of them must be napping. At five o’clock the soldier who was awake aroused the corporal and the other private, whom the corporal sent to relieve the man on guard in the kitchen. “I must ’ave slept mighty sound,” remarked the corporal. “I’d never believe I’d been asleep an hour, if I didn’t see it hon the clock.”