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Clocks...................................................................................................................................................................1

Jerome K. Jerome .....................................................................................................................................1

There are two kinds of clocks. There is the clock that is always wrong, and that knows it is wrong, and glories

in it; and there is the clock that is always rightexcept when you rely upon it, and then it is more wrong than

I remember a clock of this latter type, that we had in the house when I was a boy, routing us all up at three

o'clock one winter's morning. We had finished breakfast at ten minutes to four, and I got to school a little

after five, and sat down on the step outside and cried, because I thought the world had come to an end;

The man who can live in the same house with one of these clocks, and not endanger his chance of heaven

about once a month by standing up and telling it what he thinks of it, is either a dangerous rival to that old

established firm, Job, or else he does not know enough bad language to make it worth his while to start

The great dream of its life is to lure you on into trying to catch a train by it. For weeks and weeks it will keep

the most perfect time. If there were any difference in time between that clock and the sun, you would be

convinced it was the sun, not the clock, that wanted seeing to. You feel that if that clock happened to get a

quarter of a second fast, or the eighth of an instant slow, it would break its heart and die.

It is in this spirit of childlike faith in its integrity that, one morning, you gather your family around you in

the passage, kiss your children, and afterward wipe your jammy mouth, poke your finger in the baby's eye,

promise not to forget to order the coals, wave at last fond adieu with the umbrella, and depart for the

I never have been quite able to decide, myself, which is the more irritating to run two miles at the top of your

speed, and then to find, when you reach the station, that you are threequarters of an hour too early; or to

stroll along leisurely the whole way, and dawdle about outside the bookingoffice, talking to some local

idiot, and then to swagger carelessly on to the platform, just in time to see the train go out!

As for the other class of clocksthe common or alwayswrong clocksthey are harmless enough. You

wind them up at the proper intervals, and once or twice a week you put them right and "regulate" them, as

you call it (and you might just as well try to "regulate" a London tomcat). But you do all this, not from any

selfish motives, but from a sense of duty to the clock itself. You want to feel that, whatever may happen, you

So far as looking to it for any return is concerned, that you never dream of doing, and consequently you are

But you are not deceived by this. You know that, as a matter of fact, it must be somewhere between nine and

ten in the evening; and, remembering that you noticed, as a curious circumstance, that the clock was only

forty minutes past four, hours ago, you mildly admire its energies and resources, and wonder how it does it.

I myself possess a clock that for complicated unconventionality and lighthearted independence, could, I

should think, give points to anything yet discovered in the chronometrical line. As a mere timepiece, it

leaves much to be desired; but, considered as a selfacting conundrum, it is full of interest and variety.

I heard of a man once who had a clock that he used to say was of no good to any one except himself, because

he was the only man who understood it. He said it was an excellent clock, and one that you could thoroughly

depend upon; but you wanted to know itto have studied its system. An outsider might be easily misled by

"For instance," he would say, "when it strikes fifteen, and the hands point to twenty minutes past eleven, I

His acquaintanceship with that clock must certainly have given him an advantage over the cursory observer!

But the great charm about my clock is its reliable uncertainty. It works on no method whatever; it is a pure

emotionalist. One day it will be quite frolicsome, and gain three hours in the course of the morning, and think

nothing of it; and the next day it will wish it were dead, and be hardly able to drag itself along, and lose two

hours out of every four, and stop altogether in the afternoon, too miserable to do anything; and then, getting

I do not care to talk much about this clock; because when I tell the simple truth concerning it, people think I

It is very discouraging to find, when you are straining every nerve to tell the truth, that people do not believe

you, and fancy that you are exaggerating. It makes you feel inclined to go and exaggerate on purpose, just to

show them the difference. I know I often feel tempted to do so myselfit is my early training that saves me.

We should always be very careful never to give way to exaggeration; it is a habit that grows upon one.

And it is such a vulgar habit, too. In the old times, when poets and drygoods salesmen were the only people

who exaggerated, there was something clever and _distingue_ about a reputation for "a tendency to over,

rather than to underestimate the mere bald facts." But everybody exaggerates nowadays. The art of

exaggeration is no longer regarded as an "extra" in the modern bill of education; it is an essential

The whole world exaggerates. It exaggerates everything, from the yearly number of bicycles sold to the

yearly number of heathens convertedinto the hope of salvation and more whiskey. Exaggeration is the

basis of our trade, the fallowfield of our art and literature, the groundwork of our social life, the foundation

of our political existence. As schoolboys, we exaggerate our fights and our marks and our fathers' debts. As

men, we exaggerate our wares, we exaggerate our feelings, we exaggerate our incomesexcept to the

taxcollector, and to him we exaggerate our "outgoings"; we exaggerate our virtues; we even exaggerate our

vices, and, being in reality the mildest of men, pretend we are daredevil scamps.

We have sunk so low now that we try to _act_ our exaggerations, and to live up to our lies. We call it

"keeping up appearances;" and no more bitter phrase could, perhaps, have been invented to describe our

If we possess a hundred pounds a year, do we not call it two? Our larder may be low and our grates be chill,

but we are happy if the "world" (six acquaintances and a prying neighbor) gives us credit for one hundred and

fifty. And, when we have five hundred, we talk of a thousand, and the allimportant and beloved "world"

(sixteen friends now, and two of them carriagefolks!) agree that we really must be spending seven hundred,

or at all events, running into debt up to that figure; but the butcher and baker, who have gone into the matter

After awhile, having learned the trick, we launch out boldly and spend like Indian Princesor rather _seem_

to spend; for we know, by this time, how to purchase the seeming with the seeming, how to buy the

appearance of wealth with the appearance of cash. And the dear old worldBeelzebub bless it! for it is his

own child, sure enough; there is no mistaking the likeness, it has all his funny little waysgathers round,

applauding and laughing at the lie, and sharing in the cheat, and gloating over the thought of the blow that it

Truth and fact are oldfashioned and outofdate, my friends, fit only for the dull and vulgar to live by.

Appearance, not reality, is what the clever dog grasps at in these clever days. We spurn the dullbrown solid

earth; we build our lives and homes in the fairseeming rainbowland of shadow and chimera.

To ourselves, sleeping and waking there, _behind_ the rainbow, there is no beauty in the house; only a chill

damp mist in every room, and, over all, a haunting fear of the hour when the gilded clouds will melt away,

But, there! of what matter is _our_ misery, _our_ terror? To the stranger, our home appears fair and bright.

The workers in the fields below look up and envy us our abode of glory and delight! If _they_ think it

pleasant, surely _we_ should be content. Have we not been taught to live for others and not for ourselves, and

Ah! yes, we are selfsacrificing enough, and loyal enough in our devotion to this newcrowned king, the

child of Prince Imposture and Princess Pretense. Never before was despot so blindly worshiped! Never had

Man, if he would live, _must_ worship. He looks around, and what to him, within the vision of his life, is the

greatest and the best, that he falls down and does reverence to. To him whose eyes have opened on the

nineteenth century, what nobler image can the universe produce than the figure of Falsehood in stolen robes?

It is cunning and brazen and hollowhearted, and it realizes his souls ideal, and he falls and kisses its feet,

Ah! he is a mighty monarch, bladderbodied King Humbug! Come, let us build up temples of hewn shadows

wherein we may adore him, safe from the light. Let us raise him aloft upon our Brummagem shields. Long

live our coward, falsehearted chief!fit leader for such soldiers as we! Long live the LordofLies,

But we must hold him aloft very carefully, oh, my brother warriors! He needs much "keeping up." He has no

bones and sinews of his own, the poor old flimsy fellow! If we take our hands from him, he will fall a heap of

wornout rags, and the angry wind will whirl him away, and leave us forlorn. Oh, let us spend our lives

keeping him up, and serving him, and making him greatthat is, evermore puffed out with air and

Burst one day he must, as it is in the nature of bubbles to burst, especially when they grow big. Meanwhile,

he still reigns over us, and the world grows more and more a world of pretense and exaggeration and lies; and

he who pretends and exaggerates and lies the most successfully, is the greatest of us all.

The world is a gingerbread fair, and we all stand outside our booths and point to the gorgeouscolored

pictures, and beat the big drum and brag. Brag! brag! Life is one great game of brag!

"Buy my soap, oh ye people, and ye will never look old, and the hair will grow again on your bald places, and

ye will never be poor or unhappy again,; and mine is the only true soap. Oh, beware of spurious imitations!"

"Buy my lotion, all ye that suffer from pains in the head, or the stomach, or the feet, or that have broken

arms, or broken hearts, or objectionable mothersinlaw; and drink one bottle a day, and all your troubles

"Come to my church, all ye that want to go to Heaven, and buy my penny weekly guide, and pay my

pewrates; and, pray ye, have nothing to do with my misguided brother over the road. _This_ is the only safe

"Oh, vote for me, my noble and intelligent electors, and send our party into power, and the world shall be a

new place, and there shall be no sin or sorrow any more! And each free and independent voter shall have a

bran new Utopia made on purpose for him, according to his own ideas, with a goodsized, extraunpleasant

purgatory attached, to which he can send everybody he does not like. Oh! do not miss this chance!"

Oh! listen to my philosophy, it is the best and deepest. Oh! hear my songs, they are the sweetest. Oh! buy my

Oh! _I_ am the greatest cheesemonger, _I_ am the greatest soldier, _I_ am the greatest statesman, _I_ am the

greatest poet, _I_ am the greatest showman, _I_ am the greatest mountebank, _I_am the greatest editor, and

_I_ am the greatest patriot. _We_ are the greatest nation. _We_ are the only good people. _Ours_ is the only

How we all brag and bounce, and beat the drum and shout; and nobody believes a word we utter; and the

"How can we tell who is the greatest and the cleverest among all these shrieking braggarts?"

"There is none great or clever. The great and clever men are not here; there is no place for them in this

pandemonium of charlatans and quacks. The men you see here are crowing cocks. We suppose the greatest

and the best of _them_ are they who crow the loudest and the longest; that is the only test of _their_ merits."

Therefore, what is left for us to do, but to crow? And the best and greatest of us all, is he who crows the

It was my wife's idea, getting it, in the first instance. We had been to dinner at the Buggles', and Buggles had

just bought a clock"picked it up in Essex," was the way he described the transaction. Buggles is always

going about "picking up" things. He will stand before an old carved bedstead, weighing about three tons, and

"Yespretty little thing! I picked it up in Holland;" as though he had found it by the roadside, and slipped it

Buggles was rather full of this clock. It was of the good oldfashioned "grandfather" type. It stood eight feet

high, in a carvedoak case, and had a deep, sonorous, solemn tick, that made a pleasant accompaniment to

the afterdinner chat, and seemed to fill the room with an air of homely dignity.

We discussed the clock, and Buggles said how he loved the sound of its slow, grave tick; and how, when all

the house was still, and he and it were sitting up alone together, it seemed like some wise old friend talking to

him, and telling him about the old days and the old ways of thought, and the old life and the old people.

The clock impressed my wife very much. She was very thoughtful all the way home, and, as we went upstairs

to our flat, she said, "Why could not we have a clock like that?" She said it would seem like having some one

I have a man in Northamptonshire from whom I buy old furniture now and then, and to him I applied. He

answered by return to say that he had got exactly the very thing I wanted. (He always has. I am very lucky in

this respect.) It was the quaintest and most oldfashioned clock he had come across for a long while, and he

From the photograph and the particulars, it seemed, as he said, the very thing, and I told him, "Yes; send it up

Three days afterward, there came a knock at the doorthere had been other knocks at the door before this, of

course; but I am dealing merely with the history of the clock. The girl said a couple of men were outside, and

I found they were Pickford's carriers, and glancing at the waybill, I saw that it was my clock that they had

They said they were very sorry, but that was just the difficulty. They could not get it up.

I went down with them, and wedged securely across the second landing of the staircase, I found a box which

I should have judged to be the original case in which Cleopatra's Needle came over.

I brought down a chopper and a crowbar, and we sent out and collected in two extra hired ruffians and the

five of us worked away for half an hour and got the clock out; after which the traffic up and down the

We then got the clock upstairs and put it together, and I fixed it in the corner of the diningroom.

At first it exhibited a strong desire to topple over and fall on people, but by the liberal use of nails and screws

and bits of firewood, I made life in the same room with it possible, and then, being exhausted, I had my

In the middle of the night my wife woke me up in a great state of alarm, to say that the clock had just struck

My wife said she had a presentiment it meant baby. There was no comforting her; she cried herself to sleep

During the course of the morning, I succeeded in persuading her that she must have made a mistake, and she

This renewed all her fears. She was convinced now that both baby and I were doomed, and that she would be

left a childless widow. I tried to treat the matter as a joke, and this only made her more wretched. She said

that she could see I really felt as she did, and was only pretending to be lighthearted for her sake, and she

In the night the clock gave us another warning, and my wife accepted it for her Aunt Maria, and seemed

resigned. She wished, however, that I had never had the clock, and wondered when, if ever, I should get

The next day the clock struck thirteen four times and this cheered her up. She said that if we were all going to

die, it did not so much matter. Most likely there was a fever or a plague coming, and we should all be taken

After that the clock went on and killed every friend and relation we had, and then it started on the neighbors.

It struck thirteen all day long for months, until we were sick of slaughter, and there could not have been a

Then it turned over a new leaf, and gave up murdering folks, and took to striking mere harmless thirtynines

and fortyones. Its favorite number now is thirtytwo, but once a day it strikes fortynine. It never strikes

more than fortynine. I don't know whyI have never been able to understand whybut it doesn't.

It does not strike at regular intervals, but when it feels it wants to and would be better for it. Sometimes it

strikes three or four times within the same hour, and at other times it will go for halfaday without striking

I have thought now and then of having him "seen to," and made to keep regular hours and be respectable; but,

somehow, I seem to have grown to love him as he is with his daring mockery of Time.

He certainly has not much respect for it. He seems to go out of his way almost to openly insult it. He calls

halfpast two thirtyeight o'clock, and in twenty minutes from then he says it is one!

Is it that he really has grown to feel contempt for his master, and wishes to show it? They say no man is a

hero to his valet; may it be that even stonyface Time himself is but a shortlived, puny mortala little

greater than some others, that is allto the dim eyes of this old servant of his? Has be, ticking, ticking, all

these years, come at last to see into the littleness of that Time that looms so great to our awed human eyes?

Is he saying, as he grimly laughs, and strikes his thirtyfives and forties: "Bah! I know you, Time, godlike

and dread though you seem. What are you but a phantoma dreamlike the rest of us here? Ay, less, for

you will pass away and be no more. Fear him not, immortal men. Time is but the shadow of the world upon