"That's because you haven't lived with them more than half a century as I have," the old man returned in friendly fashion. "I've summered and wintered them, you see, for fifty years and know their tricks and their manners. But this clock of Richard Parsons has no such caprices. It is a fine, sensible clock that goes faithfully about its business unless hindered by the lack of a rivet or a drop of oil. Just now its chimes are bothering; but we'll have them right after a little." "Has it chimes?" "Aye, surely. It has eight bells, though it is a small clock for the table or mantelpiece. The people of 1700 loved music and so did the clockmakers. Therefore clocks like this, that would play a different tune every day of the week, were in great demand. Maybe you never happened to see an old bracket clock of the long ago." "No, I never did." Christopher shook his head. "I'll go and fetch it. To tell you the truth, I put it away so it shouldn't be a temptation to me. Otherwise I'd be fussing with it and letting commonplace things such as this go." McPhearson rose and shuffled away, only to return a few moments later carrying the bracket clock by its brass handle. "So you never saw an old fellow like this, eh?" inquired he with evident satisfaction. "No. I certainly never saw a clock with a brass handle on top to carry it by," confessed Christopher. "And what do you say to its glass back and its beautifully chased works?" McPhearson turned his treasure round. "It was made to set on a table you see, or before the mirror that hung above the fireplace, in either of which spots the back of it would show almost as much as the front. Therefore its works were engraved, that one side should be quite as pleasing as the other." "It's a beauty, isn't it?" [Illustration: "So you never saw an old fellow like this, eh?" _Page_ 24.] "Well, you won't see many like it," the Scotchman asserted proudly. "Not but what a good number of them were turned out in England between 1670 and 1750. But that was a long while ago, and things get scattered and are crowded out by newer fashions; besides, antique clocks are not always cared for and kept running. Then, too, it isn't always possible to find people who understand repairing such old fellows," McPhearson explained modestly. "As I said, they have to be taken as special cases and no end of thought put into them. More clocks are ruined by ignorant doctoring than by anything else. This one, thank goodness, has evidently always had intelligent care; if it hadn't it would not be ticking now." Gently the man put his burden on the workbench. It was a square clock with arched top and brass feet; and its face, suggesting that of a grandfather clock, was quaintly decorated with garlands of red roses. It had beautifully pierced hands, small brass cherub's heads at the corners, and at the top a single small hand pointed to its musical repertoire which consisted of: cotillion, jig, minuet, song, air, dance, and hymn.