d was at hand, so a clean pocket-handkerchief was
utilised, not to its advantage--and the work went on.

Vane's face was a study as he used his penknife to scrape and pare off
hardened oil, which clogged the various bearings; and as some pieces of
the clock, iron or brass, was restored to its proper condition of
brightness, the lad smiled and looked triumphant.

Time went on, though that clock stood still, and all at once, as he set
down a wheel and began wishing that he had some one to help him remove
the weights, it suddenly dawned upon him that it was getting towards
sunset, that he had forgotten all about his dinner, and that if he
wanted any tea, he must rapidly replace the wheels he had taken out, and
screw the frame-work back which he had removed.

He had been working at the striking part of the clock, and he set to at
once building up again, shaking his head the while at the parts he had
not cleaned, having been unable to remove them on account of the line
coiled round a drum and attached to a striking weight.

"A clockmaker would have had that weight off first thing, I suppose," he
said to himself, as he toiled away. "I'll get Aleck to come and help me
to-morrow and do it properly, while I'm about it."

"It's easy enough," he said half-aloud at the end of an hour. "I
believe I could make a clock in time if I tried. There you are," he
muttered as he turned the final screw that he had removed. "Hullo, what
a mess I'm in!"

He looked at his black and oily hands, and began thinking of soap and
soda with hot-water as he rose from his knees after gathering up his
tools, and then he stopped staring before him at a ledge beneath the
back of the clock face.

"Why, I forgot them," he said, taking from where they lay a couple of
small cogged wheels which he had cleaned very carefully, and put on one
side early in his task.

"Where do they belong to?" he muttered, as he looked from them to the
clock and back again.

There seemed to be nothing missing: every part fitted together, but it
was plain enough that these two wheels had been left out, and that to
find out where they belonged and put them back meant a serious task gone
over again.

"Well, you two will have to wait," said the boy at last. "It doesn't so
much matter as I'm going to take the clock to pieces again, but all the
same, I don't like missing them."

He hesitated for a few moments, as to what he should do with the wheels,
and ended by reach