"You can take your choice of tunes, you see," explained McPhearson. "There is one for every day of the week. All you have to do is to shift the indicator round to what your want to hear. It chimes every three hours--at six, nine, twelve, and three o'clock, and just before the music begins, it strikes one to indicate the hour." "I wish I could hear it play." "You shall by and by. And you may select the tune if you like. It has a pretty tone, something like that of a music box; and the selections are pretty, too--old-fashioned airs that were familiar to the people of that day and are now curious and interesting. I want you to notice the brass spandrels while you are about it, for it is those that do much in helping us determine the dates when old clocks were made." "I'm afraid I don't know what a spandrel is," Christopher announced with appealing frankness. "And what marvel? How should you?" his companion replied pleasantly. "You have been such a good listener that I was forgetting you had not been brought up among clocks as I have been. Well, a spandrel is the small brass ornament at the corner that fills in the triangular gap left between the circular face and the square outline of the case. Some clocks have four of these, others such as this one only two. These ornaments were roughly cast in brass and afterward more carefully lacquered and finished by the clockmaker himself. Sometimes, however, we find them crudely executed as if they had been taken direct from the mold. Clockmakers of that time were not so inventive as we; neither had they had training in design, and as a result we see little variety in these brass ornamentations. At one period all these spandrels took the form of cherub's heads, an idea that may possibly have been copied from the Italians. Later a pattern with two cherubs supporting a crown was popular; and at a still later date the head of the cherub set in a scroll is found. That is the pattern on this one. The brass basketwork across the top is a relic of the old bird-cage clock which just preceded this one, and was cast by the metalsmith and then purchased by the clockmaker as were the spandrels. "Since we know the approximate date that such metal work was done and have in addition Richard Parsons' name listed among the London Clockmakers' Company together with his address, there is pretty positive evidence that this antique is genuine." "Was a list of all the London clockmakers kept?" questioned Christopher incredulously. "Of those who belonged to the Clockmakers' Company, yes; but there were many excellent makers who lived in the country and therefore did not belong to this guild. Those who were members were, you may be moderately certain, fine workmen. For that matter you may rest assured that any old clock of early make which is still doing duty is a good clock; it would not be going now if it weren't." "Of course. But Richard Parsons was really in the list, was he?"