.

Paul had begun to speculate, in his own odd way, on the subject that
might occupy the Apothecary's mind just at that moment; so musingly
had he answered the two questions of Doctor Blimber. But the Apothecary
happening to meet his little patient's eyes, as the latter set off on
that mental expedition, and coming instantly out of his abstraction with
a cheerful smile, Paul smiled in return and abandoned it.

He lay in bed all that day, dozing and dreaming, and looking at Mr
Toots; but got up on the next, and went downstairs. Lo and behold, there
was something the matter with the great clock; and a workman on a pair
of steps had taken its face off, and was poking instruments into the
works by the light of a candle! This was a great event for Paul, who sat
down on the bottom stair, and watched the operation attentively: now
and then glancing at the clock face, leaning all askew, against the wall
hard by, and feeling a little confused by a suspicion that it was ogling
him.

The workman on the steps was very civil; and as he said, when he
observed Paul, 'How do you do, Sir?' Paul got into conversation with
him, and told him he hadn't been quite well lately. The ice being thus
broken, Paul asked him a multitude of questions about chimes and clocks:
as, whether people watched up in the lonely church steeples by night
to make them strike, and how the bells were rung when people died, and
whether those were different bells from wedding bells, or only sounded
dismal in the fancies of the living. Finding that his new acquaintance
was not very well informed on the subject of the Curfew Bell of ancient
days, Paul gave him an account of that institution; and also asked
him, as a practical man, what he thought about King Alfred's idea of
measuring time by the burning of candles; to which the workman replied,
that he thought it would be the ruin of the clock trade if it was
to come up again. In fine, Paul looked on, until the clock had quite
recovered its familiar aspect, and resumed its sedate inquiry; when the
workman, putting away his tools in a long basket, bade him good day,
and went away. Though not before he had whispered something, on
the door-mat, to the footman, in which there was the phrase
'old-fashioned'--for Paul heard it. What could that old fashion be, that
seemed to make the people sorry! What could it be!

Having nothing to learn now, he thought of this frequently; though not
so often as he might have done, if