Clocks

Clocks, by Jerome K. Jerome

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Title: Clocks
Author: Jerome K. Jerome
Release Date: March, 1997 [EBook #855] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on November 28, 2002] [Most recently updated: November 28, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, CLOCKS ***

Scanned and proofed by Ron Burkey ([email protected]) and Amy Thomte, from a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow", published by A. L. Burt.
Notes on the editing of this text:
1. Italicized phrases are delimited by the underline character (""). 2. Hyphens have been left in the text only where it was the clear intention of the author. For example, throughout the text, "tonight" and "tomorrow" appear as "to-night" and "to-morrow". This is intentional, and is not simply a legacy of words having been broken across lines in the printed text. 3. The pound (currency) symbol has been replaced by the word "pounds".

CLOCKS.
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 right--except when you rely upon it, and then it is more wrong than you would think a clock could be in a civilized country.
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; everything was so death-like!
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 saying anything at all.
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 child-like 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 railway-station.
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 three-quarters of an hour too early; or to stroll along leisurely the whole way, and dawdle about outside the booking-office, 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 clocks--the common or always-wrong clocks--they 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 tom-cat). 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,