The boy's face fell. "What do you say to coming with me? Would your father be willing?" "Oh, he wouldn't care. Where are you going?" "Out to Morningside Drive to look at a clock that they want me to see." "When are you leaving?" "Right away. I was waiting a second or two to see if you'd put in an appearance." "That was awfully good of you. I'll get my coat." "You'd better ask your father." "Don't worry. He'll think it's all right." "Still, I'd rather you asked him." "If it will make you any easier in your mind, I will. It won't take a second." Off rushed Christopher, only to return breathless a moment or two later. "Dad says I can go as long as it's with you. And he told me to tell you we needn't rush the trip. Here's money for our fares." Christopher extended a fresh new bill. "Pooh! Pooh! Nonsense!" growled McPhearson. "We'll not need that. I've money enough. Besides, we're only going in the bus." "No matter. Dad said--" "Come along," interrupted the Scotchman, catching up his bag of tools and cutting short further discussion. "If we stand here arguing we shall never get off at all." Docilely Christopher followed him into the street where amid surging crowds they hailed the bus and began rolling up the avenue. "New York couldn't get along very well without clocks, could it?" commented Christopher, as he looked down upon the maelstrom of hurrying humanity. "Not very well," laughed his companion. "I suppose the majority of this rushing mob is aiming to arrive somewhere at a specified time. There are probably men with business engagements; women with dressmakers' and dentists' appointments; students hastening to lectures; people going for trains and cars. You may be reasonably certain it is the clock that is spurring them forward. Earlier in the day the throngs would have been denser than this, for then we should have seen the workers who pour into the city every morning. As it is there are quite enough of them. So it goes from dawn until dusk. Everybody moves on schedule and it is precisely because the day is cut up into this checkerboard of hours that we can fit our work and play together and accomplish so much in it." "It doesn't leave us much time for play," suggested Christopher mischievously. "No, I am afraid it doesn't--not enough time. Somehow the proportions have become distorted. We consider play almost a waste of time and with life short as it is, to fool time away has become little short of a sin. Certainly to waste another person's time is criminal--the actual stealing of a valuable commodity that can never be replaced." "People who are late never seem to consider themselves thieves," grinned Christopher. "They ought to," McPhearson answered solemnly. "Everybody's time has a money equivalent in these days. If a man keeps me waiting or talks my time away, he robs me of five or ten or twenty dollars, according to the length of the interval he has kept me from my work."