air of a country schoolmaster, with more scholars than fees, taking the air on a half-holiday. This respectable personage was (as I said) gazing steadfastly at the OLD CHURCH CLOCK, over the battlements of the bridge: he had his own watch in his hand, of ample size and antique appearance; and I saw that he was going to regulate its time by that of the venerable old time-teller in the tower of the Collegiate Church. Knowing that at that moment the Old Church clock was not, as they say “quite right,” (for friend PETER CLARE is sometimes much more attentive to the accuracy of his own external appearance, than to the correctness of those measurers of time, which her majesty’s subjects have committed to his regulation,) I could not resist the inclination to caution one, whom I almost considered an old acquaintance, against being led into error, by setting his own watch to a clock which was at least five minutes behind the hour. “My friend,” said I, (taking out my own watch at the same time, to give some force to my words,) “that clock is six minutes too slow.” “It may be so, sir,” said he, looking at me quite in the way that I had looked at him, viz. as an old acquaintance, “it may be so, but I always set my watch by that clock, every week, whether it be right or wrong!” “Indeed!” exclaimed I, “that seems a strange fancy.” “It may be so,” said he, “and perhaps it is. But, sir, I know that clock of old; five and forty years I have gone by it, and it has never led me far wrong yet. It has saved me some good thrashings, and more hard money; to say nothing of better things it has done for me. It is now the oldest friend I have in Manchester, and I keep up my acquaintance with it, by setting my watch by it every Saturday; and, with GOD’s blessing, so long as I live in Manchester, (and it is very likely, now, that I may live here till I die,) I will set my watch by that clock, be it right or wrong!” There was a mixture of joke and earnest in the old man’s manner, as he said this, like one who feels that what he says seriously may yet be open to ridicule; and I could not help replying, in a tone somewhat similar to his own—“Well, I never heard so much said in favour of the Old Church clock before! As we are walking in the same direction, perhaps you will give me some particulars as to your acquaintance with that old clock, and of the good which you have had out of it.” “It will be rather a long story, sir: but I am getting to an age when it is a pleasure to me to tell long stories, especially about myself—I have little else to do.”