"Thomas Harland made quite a few of these wags-on-the-wall as well as some fine long-case clocks with works of brass," added the old man. "I suppose none of the makers could turn out very many clocks when every part of them had to be made by hand," was Christopher's thoughtful comment. "No, they couldn't. Moreover the demand for clocks was not great. Usually clockmakers either started only three or four or else began none until they received advance orders. If eight or ten good clocks that would sell for thirty-five or forty dollars apiece were turned out inside a year, the output was held to be a pretty fair one." "Nobody could get very rich on that income," came from the lad. "Not if that rate of production had continued. But it didn't, you see. After Eli Terry got to making clocks somewhere about 1795 he was clever enough to carry water from a near-by brook into his shop and supplement his tools and hand engine with water power. That was a stride ahead of the old way and opened before him all manner of undreamed-of possibilities, as a result of which he decided to make clocks on a tremendous scale. The type of thing he aimed to produce was a thirty-hour clock with wooden works and a pendulum vibrating seconds; and he figured that by purchasing more water power and larger buildings he would be able to make such clocks at the rate of a thousand or more a year and therefore turn them out for as little as four dollars apiece--a mad enterprise in that era of limited economic conditions." "Did the scheme make good?" "Not to the extent he had hoped," answered McPhearson. "He could, it is true, make clocks with wooden works much cheaper than with works of brass; but he did not feel satisfied with them and after the year was up he abandoned the venture. Hence this variety of clock of the elder Terry workmanship is rarely to be found. A somewhat crude timepiece it was, having no dial and only figures painted on the glass at the front of the case to indicate the hours. Peering through it one could see the works. But although Eli Terry himself gave up making this style of clock, others who had caught his idea did not and consequently a good many of them came into the market. In fact most of Terry's inspirations were thanklessly snatched up by his contemporaries, for in all his years of work he took out only one patent." A protest escaped Christopher's lips.