The Man hesitated for a second and drew his mouth into a funny twist. "I don't believe there _is_ another one like it in all the world," he acknowledged, half laughingly,--"that is, not _just_ like it. I've had it fixed so that it won't strike _eleven_. I'm utterly tired of having you say 'There! it's eleven o'clock and you've _got_ to go home.' _Now_, after ten o'clock nothing can strike till twelve, and that gives me two whole hours to use my own judgment in." The Girl took one eager step towards him, when suddenly over the city roofs and across the square came the hateful, strident chime of midnight. Midnight? _Midnight?_ The Girl rushed frantically to her closet and pulled the Man's coat out from among her fluffy dresses and thrust it into his hands, and he fled distractedly for his train without "Good-by." That was the trouble with having a lover who lived so far away and was so busy that he could come only one evening a week. Long as you could make that one evening, something always got crowded out. If you made love, there was no time to talk. If you talked, there was no time to make love. If you spent a great time in greetings, it curtailed your good-by. If you began your good-by any earlier, why, it cut your evening right in two. So the Girl sat and sulked a sad little while over the general misery of the situation, until at last, to comfort herself with the only means at hand, she went over to the closet and opened the door just wide enough to stick her nose in and sniff ecstatically. "Oh! O--h!" she crooned. "O--h! What a nice, smoky smell." Then she took Hickory Dock and went to bed. This method of bunking was nice for her, but it played sad havoc with Hickory Dock, who lay on his back and whizzed and whirred and spun around at such a rate that when morning came he was minutes and hours, not to say days, ahead of time. This gain in time seemed rather an advantage to the Girl. She felt that it was a good omen and must in some manner hasten the Wedding-Day, but when she confided the same to the Man at his next visit he viewed the fact with righteous scorn, though the fancy itself pleased him mightily. The Girl learned that night, however, to eschew Hickory Dock as a rag doll. She did not learn this, though, through any particular solicitude for Hickory Dock, but rather because she had to stand by respectfully a whole precious hour and watch the Man's lean, clever fingers tinker with the little, jeweled mechanism. It was a fearful waste of time. "You are so kind to _little_ things," she whispered at last, with a catch in her voice that made the Man drop his work suddenly and give all his attention to _big_ things. And another evening went, while Hickory Dock stood up like a hero and refused to strike eleven.