"Let's make a sun-dial here, Mr. Levin?" asked Ross, finishing Anton's sentence. "We can, can't we?" "Certainly. You can make a sun-dial anywhere. If you had to do it without a watch, you might find it a little difficult, of course, but it can be done. For example, I can tell you off-hand that for this latitude here, the angle between noon and eleven o'clock, is a little over nine degrees, while it is nearly ten degrees at New York. "Since you've got a watch, however, it's quite easy. Your meridian line marks twelve o'clock, and a line drawn at right angles to it, from the base of the pole, inclined to an angle corresponding to the latitude, will mark six o'clock, morning and evening. If you'll put in a peg on the circle that Dan'l whitewashed, exactly at the place where the shadow touches when it is one o'clock, two o'clock and so forth on your watch, the watch having been made to agree with the shadow at noon, your sun-dial will be right all the year, round. You don't need to mark anything earlier than four in the morning or later than eight in the evening, as even on the longest day, here, the sun does not rise before that time nor set after it. You don't have to get up before six o'clock to mark the hours, as the lines are the extension of the four and five lines of the afternoon." "Let's do it!" cried Anton. "We'll make a clock with white stones, just that way! Couldn't I divide it up into five minute distances, like a regular clock, Mr. Levin?" "Yes," the Forecaster answered, "if your circle is big enough. And if you wanted to do the thing in the way that it used to be done, you could have a little motto running all around the circle, just picked out in white stones." "What kind of a motto, sir?" "All kinds were used," the other answered, "I remember one that read 'Pass On'; another 'Do not linger'; but the one I like best is the old Latin one which ran 'I count only the bright hours.' I suppose you've heard the story of the American sun-dial motto?" "No, sir," said both boys together. "You knew that the sun-dial is one of the official emblems of the United States?" "I never heard of it," Ross exclaimed. "It is. It was used on some of the earliest American coins. Last century, in London, one of the courts of justice, known as the Inner Temple, gave an order to a sun-dial maker to put up a dial. He asked for a motto, and was told to come the next day for it. Next day it was not ready, nor the day after. Still the dial-maker persisted. At last, one day, in making his request, he interrupted an important meeting, and the chairman turned to him quite impatiently and said: "'Sirrah! Begone about your business!' "'A very good motto,' said the dial-maker, not realizing that the command was meant personally for him, and he engraved the words on the dial. When the lawyers of the Inner Temple saw the motto, they agreed that nothing could be better, though it had never been intended.