e clocks are not
always cared for and kept running. Then, too, it isn't always possible
to find people who understand repairing such old fellows," McPhearson
explained modestly. "As I said, they have to be taken as special cases
and no end of thought put into them. More clocks are ruined by ignorant
doctoring than by anything else. This one, thank goodness, has evidently
always had intelligent care; if it hadn't it would not be ticking now."

Gently the man put his burden on the workbench.

It was a square clock with arched top and brass feet; and its face,
suggesting that of a grandfather clock, was quaintly decorated with
garlands of red roses. It had beautifully pierced hands, small brass
cherub's heads at the corners, and at the top a single small hand
pointed to its musical repertoire which consisted of: cotillion, jig,
minuet, song, air, dance, and hymn.

"You can take your choice of tunes, you see," explained McPhearson.
"There is one for every day of the week. All you have to do is to shift
the indicator round to what your want to hear. It chimes every three
hours--at six, nine, twelve, and three o'clock, and just before the
music begins, it strikes one to indicate the hour."

"I wish I could hear it play."

"You shall by and by. And you may select the tune if you like. It has a
pretty tone, something like that of a music box; and the selections are
pretty, too--old-fashioned airs that were familiar to the people of that
day and are now curious and interesting. I want you to notice the brass
spandrels while you are about it, for it is those that do much in
helping us determine the dates when old clocks were made."

"I'm afraid I don't know what a spandrel is," Christopher announced with
appealing frankness.

"And what marvel? How should you?" his companion replied pleasantly.
"You have been such a good listener that I was forgetting you had not
been brought up among clocks as I have been. Well, a spandrel is the
small brass ornament at the corner that fills in the triangular gap left
between the circular face and the square outline of the case. Some
clocks have four of these, others such as this one only two. These
ornaments were roughly cast in brass and afterward more carefully
lacquered and finished by the clockmaker himself. Sometimes, however, we
find them crudely executed as if they had been taken direct from the
mold. Clockmakers of that time were not so inventive as we; neither had
they had train