Sketches New and Old | Page 4

TO RAISE POULTRY
EXPERIENCE OF THE MCWILLIAMSES WITH MEMBRANOUS
CROUP MY FIRST LITERARY VENTURE HOW THE AUTHOR

WAS SOLD IN NEWARK THE OFFICE BORE JOHNNY GREER
THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF THE GREAT BEEF CONTRACT
THE CASE OF GEORGE FISHER DISGRACEFUL PERSECUTION
OF A BOY THE JUDGES "SPIRITED WOMAN" INFORMATION
WANTED SOME LEARNED FABLES, FOR GOOD OLD BOYS
AND GIRLS MY LATE SENATORIAL SECRETARYSHIP A
FASHION ITEM RILEY-NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENT A FINE
OLD MAN SCIENCE vs. LUCK THE LATE BENJAMIN
FRANKLIN MR. BLOKE'S ITEM A MEDIEVAL ROMANCE
PETITION CONCERNING COPYRIGHT AFTER-DINNER SPEECH
LIONIZING MURDERERS A NEW CRIME A CURIOUS DREAM
A TRUE STORY THE SIAMESE TWINS SPEECH AT THE
SCOTTISH BANQUET IN LONDON A GHOST STORY THE
CAPITOLINE VENUS SPEECH ON ACCIDENT INSURANCE
JOHN CHINAMAN IN NEW YORK HOW I EDITED AN
AGRICULTURAL PAPER THE PETRIFIED MAN MY BLOODY
MASSACRE THE UNDERTAKER'S CHAT CONCERNING
CHAMBERMAIDS AURELIA'S UNFORTUNATE YOUNG MAN
"AFTER" JENKINS ABOUT BARBERS "PARTY CRIES" IN
IRELAND THE FACTS CONCERNING THE RECENT
RESIGNATION HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF HONORED AS A
CURIOSITY FIRST INTERVIEW WITH ARTEMUS WARD
CANNIBALISM IN THE CARS THE KILLING OF JULIUS
CAESAR "LOCALIZED" THE WIDOW'S PROTEST THE
SCRIPTURAL PANORAMIST CURING A COLD A CURIOUS
PLEASURE EXCURSION RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR A
MYSTERIOUS VISIT

PREFACE
I have scattered through this volume a mass of matter which has never
been in print before (such as "Learned Fables for Good Old Boys and
Girls," the "Jumping Frog restored to the English tongue after
martyrdom in the French," the "Membranous Croup" sketch, and many
others which I need not specify): not doing this in order to make an
advertisement of it, but because these things seemed instructive.
HARTFORD, 1875. MARK TWAIN.

SKETCHES NEW AND OLD

MY WATCH--[Written about 1870.]
AN INSTRUCTIVE LITTLE TALE
My beautiful new watch had run eighteen months without losing or
gaining, and without breaking any part of its machinery or stopping. I
had come to believe it infallible in its judgments about the time of day,
and to consider its constitution and its anatomy imperishable. But at
last, one night, I let it run down. I grieved about it as if it were a
recognized messenger and forerunner of calamity. But by and by I
cheered up, set the watch by guess, and commanded my bodings and
superstitions to depart. Next day I stepped into the chief jeweler's to set
it by the exact time, and the head of the establishment took it out of my
hand and proceeded to set it for me. Then he said, "She is four minutes
slow-regulator wants pushing up." I tried to stop him--tried to make
him understand that the watch kept perfect time. But no; all this human
cabbage could see was that the watch was four minutes slow, and the
regulator must be pushed up a little; and so, while I danced around him
in anguish, and implored him to let the watch alone, he calmly and
cruelly did the shameful deed. My watch began to gain. It gained faster
and faster day by day. Within the week it sickened to a raging fever,
and its pulse went up to a hundred and fifty in the shade. At the end of
two months it had left all the timepieces of the town far in the rear, and
was a fraction over thirteen days ahead of the almanac. It was away
into November enjoying the snow, while the October leaves were still
turning. It hurried up house rent, bills payable, and such things, in such
a ruinous way that I could not abide it. I took it to the watchmaker to be
regulated. He asked me if I had ever had it repaired. I said no, it had
never needed any repairing. He looked a look of vicious happiness and
eagerly pried the watch open, and then put a small dice-box into his eye
and peered into its machinery. He said it wanted cleaning and oiling,
besides regulating--come in a week. After being cleaned and oiled, and
regulated, my watch slowed down to that degree that it ticked like a
tolling bell. I began to be left by trains, I failed all appointments, I got
to missing my dinner; my watch strung out three days' grace to four and
let me go to protest; I gradually drifted back into yesterday, then day
before, then into last week, and by and by the comprehension came

upon me that all solitary and alone I was lingering along in week before
last, and the world was out of sight. I seemed to detect in myself a sort
of sneaking fellow-feeling for the mummy in the museum, and a desire
to swap news with him. I went to a watchmaker again. He took the
watch all to pieces while I waited, and then said the barrel was