); SAEximRunCond expanded to false Errors-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] RETRY Love it! Twain is always good. I hadn't seen this story before. Thanks for sharing.
----- Original Message ----- From: "christopher hoover" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 1:05 AM Subject: [time-nuts] Mark Twain: My Watch // An Instructive Tail > Twain, Mark, 1835-1910. My Watch : An Instructive Little Tale > Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library > > MY WATCH > AN INSTRUCTIVE 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 desire to swap news with him. I went to a > watch > maker again. He took the watch all to pieces while I waited, and then said > the barrel was "swelled." He said he could reduce it in three days. After > this the watch averaged well, but nothing more. For half a day it would go > like the very mischief, and keep up such a barking and wheezing and > whooping > and sneezing and snorting, that I could not hear myself think for the > disturbance; and as long as it held out there was not a watch in the land > that stood any chance against it. But the rest of the day it would keep on > slowing down and fooling along until all the clocks it had left behind > caught up again. So at last, at the end of twenty-four hours, it would > trot > up to the judges' stand all right and just in time. It would show a fair > and > square average, and no man could say it had done more or less than its > duty. > But a correct average is only a mild virtue in a watch, and I took this > instrument to another watchmaker. He said the kingbolt was broken. I said > I > was glad it was nothing more serious. To tell the plain truth, I had no > idea > what the kingbolt was, but I did not choose to appear ignorant to a > stranger. He repaired the kingbolt, but what the watch gained in one way > it > lost in another. It would run awhile and then stop awhile, and then run > awhile again, and so on, using its own discretion about the intervals. And > every time it went off it kicked back like a musket. I padded my breast > for > a few days, but finally took the watch to another watchmaker. He picked it > all to pieces, and turned the ruin over and over under his glass; and then > he said there appeared to be something the matter with the hair-trigger. > He > fixed it, and gave it a fresh start. It did well now, except that always > at > ten minutes to ten the hands would shut together like a pair of scissors, > and from that time forth they would travel together. The oldest man in the > world could not make head or tail of the time of day by such a watch, and > so > I went again to have the thing repaired. This person said that the crystal > had got bent, and that the mainspring was not straight. He also remarked > that part of the works needed half-soling. He made these things all right, > and then my timepiece performed unexceptionably, save that now and then, > after working along quietly for nearly eight hours, everything inside > would > let go all of a sudden and begin to buzz like a bee, and the hands would > straightway begin to spin round and round so fast that their individuality > was lost completely, and they simply seemed a delicate spider's web over > the > face of the watch. She would reel off the next twenty-four hours in six or > seven minutes, and then stop with a bang. I went with a heavy heart to one > more watchmaker, and looked on while he took her to pieces. Then I > prepared > to cross-question him rigidly, for this thing was getting serious. The > watch > had cost two hundred dollars originally, and I seemed to have paid out two > or three thousand for repairs. While I waited and looked on I presently > recognized in this watchmaker an old acquaintance -- a steamboat engineer > of > other days, and not a good engineer, either. He examined all the parts > carefully, just as the other watchmakers had done, and then delivered his > verdict with the same confidence of manner. > > He said: > > "She makes too much steam -- you want to hang the monkey-wrench on the > safety-valve!" > > I brained him on the spot, and had him buried at my own expense. > > My uncle William (now deceased, alas!) used to say that a good horse was a > good horse until it had run away once, and that a good watch was a good > watch until the repairers got a chance at it. And he used to wonder what > became of all the unsuccessful tinkers, and gunsmiths, and shoemakers, and > engineers, and blacksmiths; but nobody could ever tell him. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe, go to > https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > and follow the instructions there. > > _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
