reased, it became possible to import from
other countries parts or the entire works of both clocks and watches.
Perhaps had not this arrangement been so easy and simple, England would
have been obliged to buck up and evolve a big watch industry of her own;
as it was she followed the less difficult path and never went into the
manufacture on a large scale with factories and all that."

"How about the French?" Christopher inquired.

"The French, no one can deny, were very ingenious watchmakers. To begin
with, they had artistic ideas and great cleverness in producing
beautiful and unique designs. The wrist watch, held by thousands of
people to be such a boon, was of French invention. But it was the Swiss
who were the master watchmakers of the Old World. A French horologer
moved to Switzerland, carrying his trade with him, and as a result there
soon grew up in Geneva a guild of workmen not to be outranked. There had
been watchmakers there before, but the standards this guild created
established a quality of work hitherto unknown. Men learned their trade
and excelled in it until every part of a Swiss watch, one might almost
say, was turned out by an expert. Some artisans made nothing but small
wheels, some large ones; some fashioned pivots, some drilled jewels in
which to set them. Afterward the watch was assembled, as we call it--all
its parts being gathered together, put in place, and adjusted. A Geneva
watch thus constructed bore what was practically the trademark of
excellence. There was nothing finer on the market."

"Were all Swiss watches equally good?" inquired Christopher.

"As a general thing a Swiss watch could be depended on. However,
different cities differed in output. None of them maintained the high
standard Geneva established, although Neuchatel, its closest rival, made
a great many fine and beautiful watches. In other centers, too, the
trade was carried on successfully. But it remained for our own country
to develop a vast factory system where every part of a watch was
constructed beneath one roof. This innovation, together with the fact
that eventually watches came to be made on regulation scales with
interchangeable parts, greatly bettered as well as increased watch
production."

"I've quite a curiosity to know how this big factory system and in fact
the whole clock and watch industry got started in America," the boy
observed.

His father smiled.

"That," replied he, "is, as Kipling says, another