"At length, in 1839, he retired, a hale, respected veteran with a long path of usefulness behind him. Until he was eighty he read without glasses; and so accurate was his eye that never in all his life did he measure the notchings on a wheel, and yet these free-hand calculations proved to be unfailingly correct. But, alas, human machinery is less long-lived than is artificial, and at the age of ninety-five Simon Willard died. "'_The old clock is worn out!_' was what he said, and indeed the words were true. For close on to a century eyes, hands, and brain had continuously labored for the well-being of others. Yet the works of a good man follow him and in numberless homes, in public buildings, on church spires, honored monuments to the memory of Simon Willard still survive--monuments far more useful than are inert blocks of marble--monuments that pulse with life and keep hourly before those who look upon them the thought of one who performed for his fellow men a practical and enduring service." CHAPTER XVII THE ROMANCE OF THE WATCH "I asked Dad last night why he didn't have a Willard clock here in the store instead of the one we've got," confided Christopher to McPhearson the next morning, "and he was quite sore about it. He said that in the first place a balcony clock of Willard make would cost a fortune and probably could not be bought, anyway; and then he added that we already had a Jim-dandy clock made by one of the Willard apprentices. I didn't get the chance to ask him what he meant by that." "Our clock is a Howard, one of the best makes there is," McPhearson explained. "Years ago Edward Howard, the founder of the Howard Clock Company, began clockmaking as a pupil of Aaron Willard, Junior. Howard was a boy of only sixteen at the time, and for five years he studied clocks under this excellent tutelage. Do not imagine, however, that this balcony clock of ours was made by Mr. Howard himself. What your father meant was that built into the background of the Howard Company were the Willard traditions and ideas." "Then really Aaron Willard hadn't much to do with our clock," remarked Christopher, disappointment in his voice.