landlord, who arrived to bemoan the unjust fates which
had not only mulcted him of two months' rent with nothing to show for it
but a rickety clock, but had also saddled him with a wholly superfluous
corpse. He abused both indiscriminately, but chiefly the clock because
it gave the effect of being sentient. So fervently did he curse it that
Stepfather Time, repassing with Willy Woolly, heard him and entered.

"And who"--the landlord addressed high Heaven with a gesture at once
pious and pessimistic--"is to pay me fourteen dollars back rent this
dirty beggar owes?"

"The man," said Stepfather Time gently, "is dead."

"He is." The landlord confirmed the unwelcome fact with objurgations.
"Now must come the po-liss, the coroner, trouble, and expense. And what
have I who run my property honest and respectable got to pay for it?
Some rags and a bum clock."

Willy Woolly sniffed at one protruding foot and growled. Dead or alive,
this was not Willy Woolly's kind of man. "Now, now, Willy Woolly!"
reproved his master. "Who are we that we should judge him?"

"But I don't _like_ him," declared Willy Woolly in unequivocal dog
language.

"I think from his face that he has suffered much," said the gentle
collector, wise in human pain.

"Me; I suppose I don't suffer!" pointed out the landlord vehemently.
"Fourteen dollars out. Two months' rent. A bum clock."

He kicked the shabby case which whizzed and birred and struck five. The
voice of its bell, measured and mellow and pure, was unquestionably D
in alt.

"My dear sir," said Stepfather Time urbanely, but quivering underneath
his calm manner with the hot eagerness of the chase, "I will buy
your clock."

A gust of rough laughter passed through the crowd. The injurious word
"nut" floated in the air, and was followed by "Verrichter." The landlord
took thought and hope.

"It is a very fine clock," he declared.

"It is a bum clock," Stepfather Time reminded him mildly.

"Stepnadel, the auctioneer, would pay me much money for it."

"I will pay you much money for it."

"How much?"

"Seven dollars. That is one month's rent that he owed."

"Two months' rent I must have."

"One," said Stepfather Time firmly.

"Two," said the landlord insistently.

"Urff! Grr--rr--rr--rrff!" said Willy Woolly in emphatic dissuasion.

Stepfather Time was scandalized. Expert opinion was quite outside of
Willy Woolly's province. Only once in the course of their years together
had he inte