.
Hawley, sir, he won't stand for no nonsense like that--not for a second.
If there's any strikin' to be done round here, or chimin' either, it's
got to be done in chorus or not at all. Ain't he been well-nigh a year
trainin' those clocks? We've got 'em down now almighty fine too--'cept
for Number Seventeen."

"I'll have a look at her."

"Do, sir! She's on the stairway, you know, halfway up."

"Oh, I remember her, although I don't believe I could give her number
offhand."

"I could. I could recite the numbers of them clocks frontways an'
backways," answered Ebenezer. "You could, too, if you had 'em to wind."

"Oh, you wind them now, do you?"

"I certainly do!" affirmed the negro, with no small degree of pride.
"Mr. Hawley's been a long time comin' to it, but at last he's let me.
Yes, sir! I wind 'em, every one."

"Indeed!"

"Yes. You see, Mr. Hawley ain't so young as he was, an' mor'n that, he's
got rheumatism in his arm. So one mornin' he say to me 'Ebenezer,' he
say, 'I reckon you'll have to take on the windin' up. My hand is gettin'
shaky.' Well, sir, had he given me the management of a railroad I
couldn't have been prouder. That's why, when Seventeen begun branchin'
out for herself, I was so 'specially upset. I wondered what I'd done to
her."

"We'll look and see," McPhearson smiled. "Very likely she's just taken
a whim, Ebenezer."

"I hope so--I do indeed, sir."

Following the old butler, Christopher and the Scotchman ascended the
stairs until they came to a niche where stood the clock in question.

It was perhaps four feet tall--an exact replica of a long-case clock.

"I never saw such a little grandfather's clock as that," commented
Christopher.

"It is a bracelet clock of early Colonial make," McPhearson explained.
"Many of them were made in Massachusetts in the early days."

"And its works are like the big ones?"

"Practically, yes. This one, as you see, was made by John Bailey of
Hanover, a small town on Cape Cod. Probably its date is about 1812 or
1815."

"It is over a hundred years old already."

"Yes. And considering it is, don't you think, Ebenezer, it has earned
the right to a little independence?" McPhearson inquired of the darky, a
twinkle in his eye.

But Ebenezer shook his head.

"Mr. Hawley done say no clock can go strikin' by herself--no matter how
old she is," Ebenezer asserted, without hint of a smile. "He say there's
no excuse for it--no excuse!"

McPhearson opened t