on the wall were occasional square-shaped interruptions of the general

tint of the plaster which betrayed that there used to be pictures in the

house--but there were none now. There were no mantel ornaments, unless

one might bring himself to regard as an ornament a clock which never came

within fifteen strokes of striking the right time, and whose hands always

hitched together at twenty-two minutes past anything and traveled in

company the rest of the way home.

Remarkable clock!" said Sellers, and got up and wound it. "I've been

offered--well, I wouldn't expect you to believe what I've been offered

for that clock. Old Gov. Hager never sees me but he says, 'Come, now,

Colonel, name your price--I must have that clock!' But my goodness I'd

as soon think of selling my wife. As I was saying to--silence in the

court--now, she's begun to strike! You can't talk against her--you have

to just be patient and hold up till she's said her say. Ah well, as I

was saying, when--she's beginning again! Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one,

twenty-two, twen----ah, that's all.--Yes, as I was saying to old Judge

---go it, old girl, don't mind me.--Now how is that?----isn't that a

good, spirited tone? She can wake the dead! Sleep? Why you might as

well try to sleep in a thunder-factory. Now just listen at that. She'll

strike a hundred and fifty, now, without stopping,--you'll see. There

ain't another clock like that in Christendom."

Washington hoped that this might be true, for the din was distracting

-though the family, one and all, seemed filled with joy; and the more the

clock "buckled down to her work" as the Colonel expressed it, and the

The Gilded Age